Eastern European names ‘westernised’ by computer glić

Haris Seferovic's name is spelt without accents in Switzerland Keystone

Eastern European names cannot be transferred accurately into Swiss passports because the federal civil registry uses an IT system that doesn’t recognise Eastern European characters.

As a result, between 1990 and 2014 the names of more than 100,000 people from Eastern Europe were “westernised”, according to an article in the Tages-Anzeiger’s weekend magazineExternal link, using figures from the Federal Statistical Office.

Most affected are people from the former Yugoslavia with names ending in -ić. In Switzerland, their names appear as -ic, without the acute accent over the “c”. Around two-thirds of all Serbian, Bosnian or Croatian names end in -ić.

The author of the Tages-Anzeiger article noted that Swiss footballer Haris Seferovic had lost his “ć” whereas Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović could keep his.

Zlatan, on the other hand, can celebrate a diacritical success Keystone

Other people who have seen their names change when applying for a Swiss passport are those from the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Turkey.

‘Makes no sense’

The Tages-Anzeiger article gave the example of Robert Matešić, a German doctor with Croat roots, who recently decided to become a naturalised Swiss citizen.

Matešić thought he had caught a spelling mistake in time on his application – the document asking him to “check all the information carefully” had spelt his name Matešic. But, having corrected it, a few days later he received an apologetic letter from the registry office, saying the “ć” character didn’t exist in the Swiss registry and his name would therefore be spelt without it.

Matešić noted that the official who had written the letter was called Irène. He wondered why an accent could be added over an “e” but not a “c”…

“Instead of becoming Matešic, I’d prefer to drop all accents. I’d rather be called Matesic,” he said. Unlike the acute over the “c”, the Swiss IT system can handle the caron over the “s”.

Spelling it Matesic would be wrong, but at least it would be consistent, he explained. “Dropping one symbol but not the other makes no sense.”

Inconsistent

The IT system used by the civil registry follows the norm set by the Geneva-based International Organization for StandardizationExternal link (ISO) and covers the western European alphabet. Therefore, names with western European characters such as the Spanish ñ, Danish ø or Swedish å are correctly spelt in Switzerland.

Matešić wrote to the justice ministry, asking to be able to keep his name. Martin Dumermuth, director of the ministry, replied to “Dear Mr Matešić”, acknowledging the inconsistent practice.

“It is known that in Switzerland it is legally impossible for increasing numbers of first names and family names to be spelt ‘correctly’,” he wrote.

Changing the current set-up could take some time, since “not only the justice ministry’s civil registry would have to be adapted but also every personal database at every administrative level in the country – at federal, cantonal and municipal level”.

In other words, the problem is known but the solution is too expensive, as the Tages-Anzeiger concluded.