Im Filipino, i came here with my daughter and married a German last May. My daughter has my (maiden) last name and no contact with biological father. She´s 7 years old and my husband is 37. So far my husband have just been in contact with a child psychologist (a family friend) in germany about it but we dont know much about the process, if it would make sense or should we just wait til my daughter is 18. We are B permit holders. Anyone had similar experience or could share even the basics?where to start? Thanks so much

Wait for what till your daughter is 18? Your husband to adopt her?

I meant that about her name to change coz we dont want her to feel left out in our new family.

My family had the same situation when my mother remarried when I was 8 years old. Granted we were in the UK and not Switzerland, so I don't know what the laws or regulations are here, but I wanted to take the surname of my newly acquired step-dad so that I didn't have a different name to my Mum and Dad.

The advice as I recall was to either :

1. Have my Mum contact my Father to ask his permission to allow me to be adopted formally by my Step-Dad. As we had no contact for the previous 7 years, that was clearly quite a tricky one!

2. Just change my name. No deed-poll or anything. I was under the age where it apparently mattered and I could just be known by another name.

My folks chose option 2 and thus I was known my surname number 2 from the age of 8 until I got married at 26.

Getting married caused a few issues as I didn't want my birth surname on my marriage certificate and my banns to be read in a name that no one knew, so I changed my name by deed-poll for about £40 and so everything worked out just fine in the end.

So, rest assured, it can be done, but I am sorry that I can't help you with the rules of this country.

You have to contact the Zentral Behoorde Adoption und Pflegefamilie from your Kanton. They will start the process

As your husband is German, wouldn't it make sense to consult a lawyer in Germany regarding adoption?

Changing your daughter's surname might be possible even without an adoption, though you would need to check the laws in your home country. If you have taken your husband's surname, I can see why you might want your daughter to as well.

In the UK you can just change your name if you so wish with no formality, sadly this does not apply to Switzerland.

Actually it is not as complicated as you might think, at least not for someone who has reached age of majority. It is just a lot of paper.

I know a Swiss woman who has the family name of the husband of her mother rather than her father.
She has tried for many years to loose the name she objects to & has never been able to do so.

Unlike the UK where it is comparatively easy to change first and surnames, it is really difficult and bureaucratic under German law. You need to prove that the name is causing exceptional hardship and from the few cases I know only one was allowed, on the grounds that the bearer (who had an international career) had a surname which had unfortunate connotations in English. The same seems to be true for Swiss law. Anyway name changes depend on the individuals nationality, so that would depend on your and your daughter's nationality. So I think you are right in thinking that adoption may be the preferable option. There is a clear explanation of the process on adoptionpolicy.org. Adoption is never simple in most countries, so I would reccommend you and your husband contact a German lawyer. The whole thing could take quite some time, but might well be worth it, If she only has a Filipino passport she could have a bureaucratic hassle later if she wants to stay in Europe. Maybe not, but who knows what things will be like in ten year's time.

There is more to the situation than just changing the name. I think you have made a good start, with your husband speaking with a psychologist about adoption. Apart from just the name, I am sure your daughter will be exressing her feelings towards her new Dad and it is quite likely that having the adoption done, will give her a more contented feeling of being accepted - perhaps especially as she goes through the teenage years. Best of luck with getting it all sorted out.