In Scotland you have to translate your surname into English?

Factual Questions
1

Does this mean that if my name is Hund and I move to Scotland I have to become Mr. Dog? Or do they just discriminate against Gaelic?

2

I know several people born in England or who have migrated here and who have foreign, but translatable, forenames/surnames so I’m confident Mr (or Herr) Hund wouldn’t have to change his name if he emigrated here.

It looks like Gaelic has been overlooked in some piece of legislation so that Baoill and Boyle are treated as different names, not just versions of the same name, and if the father in the article wanted his daughter’s surname to be NicBhaoill my guess is that he’d have to change his own to Baoill by Deed Poll. From the tone of the article there are some red faces in the Edinburgh passport office.

3

From what the article (minus spin) says it’s not really about that.

Name of father: Austin Boyle

First name of new daughter: Aoife

Father wants to register daughter as: Aoife Lochaillse NicBhaoill

Register office says: no, must be registered as Aoife Boyle

I must admit that the latter position looks perfectly reasonable to me. I don’t see where a translation of a name into English is implied.

4

tschild: Because you’re supposed to be allowed to use your Gaelic name as well as your English name in Scotland. I could get a chequebook with MacFhionghuin rather than Mackinnon for instance, even though it’s Mackinnon on my birth certificate. Anyway, three days later they changed their minds so I guess everyone’s happy now.

5

Thanks for the info. I thought it sounded unlikely.

6

[hijack] for a while (C18th?) it was illegal to have the surname MacGregor in the highlands as part of an attempt to destroy the MacGregor clan (who incidently were some of my ancestors, who cam to England after muredreing a Bishop).[/hijack]