§ Mr. KEATINGasked the Home Secretary, in view of the desirability of giving individuals an opportunity of exercising personal choice in such a personal matter as their Christian name, and seeing that the law recognises names taken at the religious ceremony of confirmation, in either Catholic or Protestant churches, either as substitutes for baptismal names, or as additional names, and that judicial 1491W opinion has been expressed that, except thus at confirmation or by private Act of Parliament, no legal means of altering the Christian name (unlike the case of the surname) exists, whether, in concert with the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant and the Secretary for Scotland, he will issue instructions to the registrars general of each part of the United Kingdom enabling the confirmation names (already valid in the eyes of the law) to be registered either as additional or substitutional names to the previous names, on payment of a small fee, and certificates of such names to be issued on application on a like payment?
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI am not prepared to take any action in the direction suggested. The change of Christian names in the birth register by persons of adult years would lead to much confusion; and the facilities could not be confined to persons who had gone through the religious ceremony of confirmation.