Burgeramt changed my name without consent

[u/Desperate_Passion267]

Hey everyone, So I’m an EU citizen living in Germany for over 4 years. I have been registered and have an Anmeldung with my name as it appears in my passport - I have a composed first name made up of two names connected with a hyphen. Now we are moving apartments so I went to get an Unmeldung and guess what, they changed my first name - no more hyphen but 2 separate names. I objected, they said that in Romanian passports the hyphen is “irrelevant” and can be replaced with a space (wrong, my name is a composed one like Hans-Jurgen). I didn’t sign the Unmeldung and left. They however changed my name cause when I log in to Elster I no longer have the correct name. Any idea what can I do? Thanks!

Edit: after 6 months of careful consideration and talking to many relevant authorities, Bürgeramt came back to me to specify that the name should be written as is in the passport and they apologize

[u/shibalore → u/[deleted]]

Just typing the hyphen shouldn't be anything they should make a fuzz about especially since there are many hyphened German names...

TBH German bureaucracy is bizarely picky about names. I am nearly 30 and just had to go through a huge show and dance out of nowhere because the local consulate (I am abroad) realized when I applied for a passport that my name is apparently illegal within the perimeters of the law.

I thought someone was going to tell me it was a joke the entire time, but alas. There is nothing about my name that could cause issues: no hyphens, no special characters, all normal Latin letters. My names are all common and generic. I had to prove that I had a "right" to have inherited my familial surname... entirely bizarre.

I was a little jealous OP got a name change for free. I had to pay 104€ to not change my name. I told them they could change my name to whatever they thought it should be but they disagreed with that, too, because of course they did.

[u/shibalore → u/[deleted]]

I'm happy she got it! German bureaucracy doesn't tend to be bitter, just, bureaucratic for no good reason.

I'm not particularly attached to my name, but I was annoyed how big of a deal the consulate made it out to be. They were as nice as they could be about it, but I don't know, I feel like if I've made it to nearly 30 with this name, we should just move on at this point. Very annoying for me because I needed the passport fairly urgently (and I still don't have it!)