This Is Getting Brazil Nuts

I’m renewing my UK passport after getting married in Brazil, and so I need to update my name. It’s slightly complicated, as I was born with three names, but my mother added her maiden name to mine as a child, and never updated the documents, so I officially had three but considered myself to have four.

Think like Rachel Ann Jones, turned Rachel Ann Smith Jones (not my real name).

First name, two middle names, and one surname.

I then got married and added my husband’s name.

Think like Rachel Ann Smith Jones Silva.

As a dual citizen, the British passport office requires that my Brazilian passport have the updated name. This is where the problem begins, as Brazil doesn’t have a concept of middle names; your name is just your name. They only split it into given and surnames on passports, as it is a foreign system.

This wouldn’t be a problem, but the law states that if the name is a surname of your parents, it has to be part of your surname.

Therefore, they put my surname as being Smith Jones Silva, whereas I was used to calling myself Jones Silva.

As such, I made a mistake with the British passport application and put Smith as a given name rather than the surname on my Brazilian passport.

This leads to an email from the British passport office stating:

British passport office: “The name on your application is different from the name on other documents you have sent us.
The name on your application is Rachel Ann Smith Jones Silva.
The name on the Brazil passport is Rachel Ann Smith Jones Silva.”

Oh, bureaucratic idiots.