A change in the law at the start of 2024 allowed parents in the Netherlands to give a child both of their surnames. Figures from the Ministry of the Interior show that 31,277 babies have been registered with a combined name since then, counted up to the beginning of this August.
The share is climbing. Combined names went to 6.8% of newborns in 2024 and 7.5% in 2025, which was 12,557 babies.
The old default, under which a child automatically took the father’s name alone, is visibly weakening.
A transitional arrangement that ran until the end of 2024 let parents apply the same change to older children, born between 2016 and 2023. Counting that group, roughly 58,000 children have been given a double surname since the law came in.
Where it is happening, and in what order
The combined surname is largely a Randstad habit. Noord-Holland leads at 11.1% of newborns, with Utrecht close behind at 10.1%.
In Friesland the figure is 4.1%, in Drenthe 4.3% and in Overijssel 4.4%.
The order still leans one way. In 70% of cases the father’s name comes first and the mother’s second.
Length can become a problem of its own, since Dutch prefixes such as van der and van den add several characters before the name proper begins. The longest combined surname registered since the law changed runs to 49 characters.
Late, by European standards
The Netherlands was among the last countries in western Europe to allow this. The United Kingdom has long left the choice open, and Ireland followed in 1997, Norway in 2003, France in 2005, Denmark in 2006, Austria in 2013, Belgium in 2014, Italy in 2016 and Sweden in 2017.
Germany remains one of the larger exceptions. A family-name specialist at the CBG centre for family history notes that the Dutch tend to assume they lead on questions of this kind, and on this one they did not.
Where it goes wrong
The law requires both parents to agree, which is straightforward until they do not. A family lawyer and mediator working in this field says the combined surname has become a new point of conflict around separations.
If one parent wants a double name and the other refuses, or if they cannot agree which name goes first, the law falls back on the old default. For married couples that means the child takes the father’s name, so a single objection is enough to settle the matter.
Campaigners including Bureau Clara Wichmann argue that an automatic fallback to the father’s name is discriminatory. Cases have been brought, and the court in Zeeland-West-Brabant has referred questions to the Supreme Court.
A ruling will decide whether a judge can require a double name over one parent’s objection, or whether the law itself has to change.
What happens to the next generation
A child who has a combined surname may pass on only one of the two names, which stops the stacking continuing indefinitely.
The CBG is not concerned about the effect on family research: the digital population register and official birth certificates keep the origin of every surname traceable to the individual.
Repair after the fact also remains possible. In 2025, 4,373 people applied to the screening authority Justis to change their surname, most of them young adults taking the name of the parent who actually raised them after a separation.
Of those requests, 2,975 were approved.
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