I am of mixed nationality and as such have two surnames, typically separated by a dash "-".
The last time I went to renew one of my passports, I was informed that my country eschews using foreign surnames on passports. After insisting, I ended up with brackets "()" on my passport.
Besides being a complete displeasure when travelling, I wonder if there is a reasoning for this policy. If for example some database has values saved in the local language, my foreign name cannot be represented correctly because we do not use Latin script. Thus my foreign name gets omitted, and effectively only is for show.
Does anyone have an idea how certain countries (China, Korea, Japan) deal with this?
In the VIZ (human readable part) Japanese passports have Latinized names; Chinese passports have both Chinese characters and also a Latinized alternate. Both are acceptable according to the ICAO specifications.
Technically anything other than the Latin alphabet is supposed to be transliterated, but I know that (for example) Ö is rendered as-is on Austrian passports; albeit as OE in the MRZ.
The last time I went to renew one of my passports, I was informed that my country eschews using foreign surnames on passports. After insisting, I ended up with brackets "()" on my passport.
Besides being a complete displeasure when travelling, I wonder if there is a reasoning for this policy. If for example some database has values saved in the local language, my foreign name cannot be represented correctly because we do not use Latin script. Thus my foreign name gets omitted, and effectively only is for show.
Does anyone have an idea how certain countries (China, Korea, Japan) deal with this?