C (A Child) (Change of Given Name)

Applications to change a child’s given name and surname are governed by the same welfare principles. Under the Children Act 1989, welfare is paramount and the court must assess the child’s wishes and feelings, emotional needs, and the likely benefits and drawbacks of legal recognition.

For a capacitous young person approaching 16, strongly expressed wishes about their name are a powerful factor. Their Article 8 private-life rights will ordinarily outweigh those of a person with parental responsibility. A name change should not be treated as necessarily endorsing a gender identity or fixing it for the future. The appeal was allowed because the judge’s welfare analysis was incomplete and wrongly treated the proposed name as inseparable from gender identity.

The Children’s Guardian appealed against HHJ Tolson’s dismissal on 21 June 2024 of the mother’s application for a specific issue order permitting C, aged 15, to change their given name. C identified as non-binary and had used the proposed gender-neutral name socially for over three years. Disputes about gender-related treatment and disclosure had largely fallen away, but a child arrangements order remained in force and affected the ability to change the surname after 16. The central issue was whether the judge had applied the welfare checklist correctly or had focused impermissibly on avoiding endorsement of C’s non-binary status.

Lady Justice King delivered the judgment, with which Lady Justice Asplin and Lord Justice Baker agreed. The appeal was allowed and an order was substituted permitting C’s given name to be legally changed to C.

1. Jurisdiction and governing principles. Section 13(1)(a) of the Children Act 1989 restricts a change of surname where a relevant child arrangements order is in force. It does not govern a change of given name. The proper jurisdiction for the given-name application was therefore a specific issue order under section 8, determined by the welfare principle in section 1. The same welfare principles apply to given names and surnames. The importance of a name requires consideration of present circumstances and likely future effects.
2. Holistic welfare assessment. The judge was entitled to recognise that C needed space to develop their identity. However, he wrongly treated the proposed name as necessarily endorsing C’s non-binary status and failed to consider the countervailing welfare benefits. He gave insufficient attention to C’s strongly held wishes, their physical and emotional vulnerability, and their emotional need for official recognition of the name by which they had lived socially for more than three years. The welfare checklist required a balanced assessment rather than a predominantly negative analysis.
3. Article 8, capacity and age. The Article 8 rights of a 16- or 17-year-old in relation to a change of name will ordinarily outweigh the Article 8 rights of a person with parental responsibility. Such young people are presumed to have capacity, and their wishes and feelings, while not invariably determinative, are a powerful factor. C had full capacity and strongly expressed wishes. In the circumstances, those wishes should have been determinative. Refusal of the order unlawfully intruded upon C’s private-life rights.
4. Statutory consequences. Because the child arrangements order regulated with whom and when C was to live, it continued beyond 16 under section 91(10A). C could therefore change their given name by unenrolled deed poll at 16, but could not change their surname or enrol the deed poll without parental consent or the court’s leave until 18. The judge was wrong to treat the relevant formalities as available to C in the short term without qualification.

The Court emphasised that the appeal was a name-change welfare appeal, not a determination of C’s gender identity.

• Family Court at Reading: On 21 June 2024 HHJ Tolson dismissed the mother’s application for a specific issue order permitting C to change their given name.
• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal by the Children’s Guardian was allowed. The refusal was set aside and an order permitting the change of C’s given name to C was substituted.