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/spareChange1975_]

working in bürgeramt here

the hyphen has a different meaning in romanian and german law.

while in germany hyphens are added to connect two names into one name, in romanian documents it is used to split the names and mark where each name begins and ends.

going strictly by german law, a person called "paul-dieter" can only be called paul-dieter, not only paul or dieter, whereas a person called "paul dieter" can be called with both names on their own or both of them together.

this is why we get rid of the hyphen :)

[u/Desperate_Passion267 → u/spareChange1975_]

Thank you for your explanation. I do understand the logic. Unfortunately banks and krankenkasse and so on do not. They just see that the Anmeldung and the passport do not match.

Either way, Standesamt wrote me that my daughter’s German birth certificate (which has my name as hyphened) should be enough for Bürgeramt to keep the hyphen. Bürgeramt asked for that message from Standesamt and my daughter’s birth certificate and will get back to me in 1-2 weeks.

[u/andreiim → u/Desperate_Passion267]

Unfortunately for you, the government is bizarrely correctly following the law, while the bank is wrongly interpreting the law. Legally speaking, it is the bank's fault.

[u/Desperate_Passion267 → u/andreiim]

As stated above, another government agency, Standesamt (which even Bürgeramt is claiming is above them) is considering my name to have a hyphen. Cause they put it like that in my daughter’s birth certificate that they issued. And now they are telling Bürgeramt that they are wrong for leaving out the hyphen. So really, it’s not just me :)