In the Name of the Child: Remedies to Adultcentrism in Naming Law

The Italian legal system undoubtedly belongs to the western legal tradition and yet, until only recently, automatic passing on of the patronymic affected a child’s legal naming in Italy in the same way as it still does in countries of no affinity with it, whilst the rest of the world had already abandoned this archaic remnant of the patriarchal society by developing alternative models: unilateral (single surname), bilateral (double surname), and liberal (parents’ free choice or multiple options) model. The Italian legal system belongs to the civil law tradition and yet it was the Constitutional Court, not the legislator, who steered the country out from the automatic patronymic mechanism to the gender egalitarian one. The Italian lawmaker has now been urged to intervene. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the adultcentrism found in many naming laws and to propose a more efficient and child-friendly solution.