Children Should Be Given Surnames Of Both Parents: Italy’s Constitutional Court

Italy’s constitutional court has ruled that children should be given the surnames of both parents. The ruling, which needs to be approved by the Italian parliament in order to be implemented across the country, has overturned the tradition—followed globally in almost all nations—that newborns automatically inherit the names of their fathers, but not their mothers.

The constitutional court said in a statement that this practice was “discriminatory and detrimental to the identity” of the child. Stating that a surname “constitutes a fundamental element of personal identity”, from now on, Italian children will automatically inherit both parents’ surnames in the order they want—unless the child chooses to take only one.

In Italy, which is dealing with a declining birth rate, the move is being hailed as a huge victory. Italy’s leading daily, La Repubblica, says that “Italian women have won a historic right.” Elena Bonetti, the Italian family minister, revealed in a Facebook post that the government will give this legislation full support. “We need to give substance [to the decision]… and it is a high priority and urgent task of politics to do so,” Bonetti wrote in the post.