Notarized translation of a name change certificate

A name change certificate is the one document on our list that certifies no event. It certifies identity: that the Ivanenko on a 2014 diploma and the Kovalenko on a 2026 passport are one person. Every other document tells an institution what happened; this one explains why the rest of the file is about you at all.

That changes what matters in it. The receiving institution looks not at the date or the seal but at whether the chain holds: the old name in one document, both names in the certificate, the new name in the passport. Break any link and the file comes back, even if each document on its own is flawless.

Price: from UAH 570 (translation from UAH 170 per 1,800-character page + notarization UAH 400) Turnaround: 1 business day Consultation: free

One certificate for surname, given name and patronymic

Under the Civil Code of Ukraine a person’s “name” covers the surname, the given name and the patronymic together. There is therefore no separate “surname change certificate” or “patronymic change certificate” in Ukraine: the civil registry issues a single name change certificate, and its content shows what exactly was changed. If you were looking for a page about translating a surname-change or full-name-change certificate, this is it.

The right to change one’s name belongs to a person from the age of 16 (Art. 295 of the Civil Code). Between 14 and 16 it requires the written consent of the parents or guardian; for younger children different rules apply and the guardianship authority decides.

The application is considered within up to three months from the date of filing, and where additional verification is needed the term may be extended but not beyond six months. Once the change is registered, the passport must be exchanged within one month — and from that moment you are holding documents in two different names that will have to be filed together.

Ukrainian citizens permanently resident abroad file the application not with the registry office but with a diplomatic mission or consulate of Ukraine, with the same set of attachments: birth certificate, marriage or divorce certificates, children’s birth certificates and a photograph.

The chain the institution checks

In practice the certificate is almost never translated alone — it goes with the documents it links. A typical file:

Document	Which name it carries	Why it is in the file
Diploma, school certificate, employment record	old	Proves education or work history
Birth certificate	old	The base identity document
Name change certificate	both	The link between old and new
Marriage / divorce certificate	depends on the date	Explains interim surname changes
International passport	new	The applicant’s current identity

A German Standesamt and a Polish USC will ask you to trace the whole chain whenever the surname changed after the base certificate was issued — through marriage, divorce or a formal name change. Universities and credential-recognition bodies do the same with a diploma. Hence our first piece of advice when ordering: list every document you are submitting, not only the one in your hand right now.

What the translation must reproduce exactly

• Both versions of the name — former and new — in the Latin spelling already used in the passport and in the other translations in the file. This is the central requirement: if the new surname is spelled differently in the certificate translation than in the passport, the document stops doing the one job it has.
• The civil act record number and the date of registration — the institution may use them to request confirmation from the registry.
• The name of the registering authority — identical across every translation in the file.
• The apostille stamp — if it is already affixed, it is translated together with the document.

You can check the official transliteration of a surname under Resolution No. 55 of the Cabinet of Ministers with our free tool — faster than comparing documents by eye.

Order of operations: apostille first, translation second

Civil registry documents are apostilled by the Ministry of Justice. The sequence never changes: obtain the certificate on the current form → apostille → translate the document together with the apostille stamp → notarize. Translate earlier and the stamp stays untranslated, and the work is repeated.

Old certificates are a separate case. An apostille is not affixed to laminated documents or to forms issued before 2003: a duplicate on a valid form has to be obtained first (how that works is on the civil certificate reissue page). The general legalisation route is described on the legalization and apostille page, and you can check which authority handles a given document with our route-finder.

Three situations where you do not need this certificate

1. A surname changed on marriage — proved by the marriage certificate (translation page).
2. Reverting to a maiden name after divorce — proved by the divorce certificate or the court decision (divorce certificate translation).
3. Only the Latin spelling changed — that is not a name change but a transliteration change in the passport, and no certificate is issued.

Price and ordering

The certificate fits on one standard page, so the arithmetic is simple: translation from UAH 170 (English UAH 300, Polish UAH 430, German UAH 450) plus notarization at UAH 400 per document. From UAH 570 in total, ready in 1 business day. When the whole chain is translated at once, a discount applies from 5 pages and the terminology and name spellings are guaranteed to match — which is the real reason to order the file in one place. The full price list is on the prices page; the certification procedure is on the notarized translation page.

Send scans of the certificate and of the documents you are filing with it — within 15 minutes we will confirm the price, the turnaround, and whether the chain of names in your file holds together. Place an order.