Constitutional Court

Constitutional Court: surname substitution prohibited in adult adoption

Constitutional Court confirms ban on substituting surnames in adult adoptions

by Giovanni Negri

18 April 2025

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Key points

Adoptee's consent not required
Child adoptions
Request to change surname

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The prohibition against substituting the last name of the adoptee over the age of majority for that of the adoptive parent does not result in an impairment of the right to personal identity of the adoptee. Nor does it entail an unreasonable disparity of treatment with respect to the adoption of the child.

This is the conclusion reached by sentence No. 53, written by Emanuela Navarretta and filed yesterday, in which the Constitutional Court declared unfounded the questions of legitimacy raised by the Court of Reggio Emilia with reference to article 299, paragraph one, of the Civil Code, in so far as it does not allow, with the adoption decision, to substitute, instead of adding or preceding, the surname of the adoptive parent to that of the adopted person over the age of majority, with the consent of the adoptive parent and the adopted person.

The consent of the adoptee is not decisive

The Court recalled that the provision of the Code was recently the subject of a declaration of unconstitutionality that made it possible, with the adoption judgment, to add the surname of the adoptive parent to that of the adopted person over the age of majority, if both, in expressing their consent to the adoption, had expressed themselves in favour (Judgment No. 135 of 2023). An intervention aimed at removing an injury to the right to personal identity that has been stratified over time precisely around the adoptee's original surname.

On the contrary, its replacement by the adoptee's surname would be tantamount to the deletion of the adoptee's surname "which for (at least) eighteen years has been the distinguishing mark of his or her personal identity". The adoptee's consent to an adoption with substitution effect is not decisive, because this would expose the adoptee to the risk of "conditioning by the adoptive parent, all the more so when one considers the benefits that civil adoption brings to the adoptee in terms of succession".

Child adoptions

Moreover, even in the adoption of a minor in particular cases, in the context of which the construction of the personal identity around the original surname is by definition less consolidated than in the case of an adult, the Court has ruled out the constitutional illegitimacy of the prohibition to take the adopting party's surname alone (ruling no. 268 of 2002).

At the heart of this ruling is the protection of the child's originalsurname as an essential feature of personal identity, from which it follows that it is not unreasonable to preserve the child's 'link with his or her past and, therefore, with his or her personal identity as it has been and is known in the social environment of which he or she is, and must continue to be, a part'.

The request to change surname

Finally, the Court specified that when specific circumstances justify an interest on the part of a person of full age in having his original surname removed, specific remedies are already provided. In particular, Article 89(1) of Presidential Decree no. 396 of 2000 provides that any person wishing to change their surname, also because it 'reveals their natural origin (...), must apply to the prefect of the province of their place of residence or of that in whose district the civil status office where the birth certificate to which the request refers is located. In the application, the applicant must set out the reasons for the request'.