Ukraine - Wife’s last name change - problem

[Greg Jr 0]

My Ukrainian wife and I recently got married in Ukraine in August. After a lot of discussion, we decided to change her last name to mine so her name was changed on our marriage certificate. One of the problems with the last name is the marriage agency added Jr. in her last name because that is how it is written on my passport. We tried to explain to them that Jr. is a suffix and is not part of my last name; however it was like speaking to the wall. So we went with it and now she is having trouble updating her international passport because it has Jr. in there and they are spelling my last name wrong in her passport. They say it is being spelled wrong because that is how the system is processing it. They can change it manually; however the woman that she spoke to would not do it. My last name starts with a W and of course they do not have a letter W in Russian or in Ukrainian. I guess my question is has anyone ever had this problem and if so, how was it corrected? She lives in Odessa, Ukraine so this is where we are having the problem. Thanks

[Blueberry Pancake 311]

Ugh, what a mess..

"The woman she spoke to wouldn't do it" you say... Can't believe I'm actually suggesting it, but .. would a bribe work?

Try posting this question here: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/forum/98-russia-ukraine-and-belarus/

Good luck!

[Greg Jr 0]

Thanks for your reply. My first response to my wife was slip her a $100 because money seems to work in Ukraine. And yes it is a mess. We are going to try to start all over agan to try to get a better translation of my name and see if that works. If it doesn't then we will find out how much she wants to just enter it into the system the way it should be spelled.

[Ryan H 3,812]

Moved from IR-1/CR-1 Process & Procedures to Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus regional forum. Duplicate thread removed.

[vbtwo 54]

Yes, slip some cash to someone and then everything becomes possible.

My future mother in law who wants to come to our wedding needed to get a new foreign passport and they kept telling her they didn't have any blanks and come back in some time and a whole ton of ####### and it'll take 2 months to do. She paid someone and got a passport a week later with no hassles whatsoever.

That is how most things work in Ukraine (especially having to do with the government), so that's what you need to do to get anything done there.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

My Ukrainian wife and I recently got married in Ukraine in August. After a lot of discussion, we decided to change her last name to mine so her name was changed on our marriage certificate. One of the problems with the last name is the marriage agency added Jr. in her last name because that is how it is written on my passport. We tried to explain to them that Jr. is a suffix and is not part of my last name; however it was like speaking to the wall. So we went with it and now she is having trouble updating her international passport because it has Jr. in there and they are spelling my last name wrong in her passport. They say it is being spelled wrong because that is how the system is processing it. They can change it manually; however the woman that she spoke to would not do it. My last name starts with a W and of course they do not have a letter W in Russian or in Ukrainian. I guess my question is has anyone ever had this problem and if so, how was it corrected? She lives in Odessa, Ukraine so this is where we are having the problem. Thanks

Not an issue at all.

As for visa issuance and such, they will accept any reaosnable spelling of any name, yours hers, etc. This is a very common problem in transliterating from the Cyrillic alphabet and compunded by Russian and Ukrainian Spellings of the same name. In addition to changing alphabets, Ukrainian uses letters of the Cyrillic alphabet that Russian does not (there are 44 letters in the alphabet, Russian uses 33, Ukrainian uses 35) Anyway, yes it is a mess.

so What?

The visa will be issued the sam as her name in the passport. Don't panic. You can change it with the AOS process, the citizenship process or just by a very simple legal name change.

You will find you are fighting an uphill battle. As soson as you get tt straight, someone else will mess it up. This is very common and understood by all involved.

Alla does translations and OMG! the number of name spellings is mind boggiling. Sometimes as many as three different spelling in the SAME document!

Fear not

Relax. Let it go. Sort this out later in the USA. It is not going to be an issue that she has "Jr." as a suffix...you simply don;t use it. The Ukrainian international passport is in both Ukrainian and English. Her name will have the "W" in the english Spelling. The US CBP is not going to care how it is spelled in Cyrillic.

Much ado about nothing.

BTW, while it is pretty impossible to mess up "Alla" our sons had multiple name spellings for the names. It all worked out and they chose the spelling they prefer. Minor nusiance.

Sleep well.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Yes, slip some cash to someone and then everything becomes possible.

My future mother in law who wants to come to our wedding needed to get a new foreign passport and they kept telling her they didn't have any blanks and come back in some time and a whole ton of ####### and it'll take 2 months to do. She paid someone and got a passport a week later with no hassles whatsoever.

That is how most things work in Ukraine (especially having to do with the government), so that's what you need to do to get anything done there.

Bribery is always an option also

Could be that is all they want. It is not unusual to create "problem" that they "can't" fix until you slide a $20 bill their way. Then it is "Go wait in the corridor"

I hadn't thought of it that way.

Alla's divorce certificate had 3 spellings of her last name...we were told "Three weeks" to get it corrected. $20 bill came out of her purse..."Go wait in the hallway" we had the corrected document in 10 minutes.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Thanks for your reply. My first response to my wife was slip her a $100 because money seems to work in Ukraine. And yes it is a mess. We are going to try to start all over agan to try to get a better translation of my name and see if that works. If it doesn't then we will find out how much she wants to just enter it into the system the way it should be spelled.

Not really such a mess (we thought so too when we were young and dumb, after doing this for 5 years and hundreds of translations, we found it is no big deal)

Start with $10 or $20. $100 is half a month's pay for that person...don't get crazy about this. $100 is for when you want them to forget where the dead girl is buried!

[Zorro2020 2]

.. .Start with $10 or $20. $100 is half a month's pay for that person...don't get crazy about this. $100 is for when you want them to forget where the dead girl is buried!

Oh man ... Gary and Ella ... You are one funny dude.

Z!

[Derek & Rita 6]

My Ukrainian wife and I recently got married in Ukraine in August. After a lot of discussion, we decided to change her last name to mine so her name was changed on our marriage certificate. One of the problems with the last name is the marriage agency added Jr. in her last name because that is how it is written on my passport. We tried to explain to them that Jr. is a suffix and is not part of my last name; however it was like speaking to the wall. So we went with it and now she is having trouble updating her international passport because it has Jr. in there and they are spelling my last name wrong in her passport. They say it is being spelled wrong because that is how the system is processing it. They can change it manually; however the woman that she spoke to would not do it. My last name starts with a W and of course they do not have a letter W in Russian or in Ukrainian. I guess my question is has anyone ever had this problem and if so, how was it corrected? She lives in Odessa, Ukraine so this is where we are having the problem. Thanks

I won't worry about the Jr or anything like that, if Russia accepts it, then USA will accept it also. Just let the USA know that the JR part was a mistake, and they should issue the green card in the appropriate name.

Don't worry about the 'W' being a B or a Y because it makes no difference. Just tell the person doing translation what your actual name is so they can do it correctly. They have rules that they follow so you can't change the way your name is translated into Russian, that's just how it is. My last name also starts with W and sometimes they translated it with a B (not a B but the V sound) and sometimes with a Y (again, not Y but a U sound).