Brazilian Ruling Recognises US Name Change
Written by Prof Dr João Costa-Neto, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Brasília
and Dr Pedro Pagano Payne, Academic Assistant, Faculty of Law, University of Brasília
In April 2025, the highest chamber (Corte Especial) of the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (STJ), under Justice Maria Isabel Gallotti as rapporteur, ruled on 
‘Recognition of a Foreign Judgment’ (HDE) no. 7.091/EX. The case concerned the recognition of a United States ruling changing the last name of a Brazilian national who had acquired US nationality. The Plaintiff sought recognition of (i) his US naturalisation and (ii) a ruling of the Supreme Judicial Court of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which changed his name from ‘Ariosto Mateus de Menezes’ to ‘Matthew Windsor’.
The Court decided it had no competence to ratify the naturalisation. Granting US citizenship is a prerogative of the US Government. And loss of Brazilian nationality is ruled by a specific domestic administrative procedure, under the Brazilian Ministry of Justice. The Court concluded that, because of lack of competence, the documents presented did not satisfy the statutory requirements for recognition under the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure and the Court’s internal rules. By contrast, the Court granted recognition of the name-change judgment. It found that the formal requirements for recognition had been met: the decision was rendered by a competent authority, had become stable, and was properly documented and translated. The decisive issue, therefore, was whether recognition would violate Brazilian ordre public.
Justice Gallotti grounded her analysis in Article 7 of the Introductory Statute to the Norms of Brazilian Law (LINDB), a statute inspired by the German Einführungsgesetz zum Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuche (EGBGB). LINDB provides that the law of the person’s domicile governs name and capacity. The applicant was domiciled in the United States. The name change was carried out under US law. The case did not fall within any area of exclusive Brazilian jurisdiction (Article 23 of the Brazilian Code of Civil Procedure).
The Attorney General’s Office (Ministério Público Federal) argued that Brazilian law does not permit total suppression of family names. The foreign judgment therefore offended public policy. The Court rejected this view. It held that the mere fact that Brazilian legislation does not provide total suppression or change of surnames does not invalidate a foreign act. The prohibition is not a “nuclear” or foundational norm of the Brazilian legal order. There was no violation of ordre public, national sovereignty, or human dignity. Justice Gallotti stated: ‘The “ordre public clause” is intended to prevent the recognition of rights that contradict the fundamental principles of our legal order. In general, private international law doctrine considers, for example, that Western countries tend not to recognise more than one spouse, even when the husband is domiciled in a country governed by Islamic law. Polygamy (the marriage of a man to multiple women) is understood to violate the basic and core rules of national family law and succession law.’ Nothing of that nature was present in the case, said the Court. A foreign name change, even one involving the substitution of a surname, does not approach the level of structural incompatibility exemplified by polygamy.
The Court also placed the case in the context of recent domestic legal reform. Brazilian Law no. 14.382/2022 significantly facilitated changes of forenames in Brazil. A person may now change their first name extrajudicially (before a notary), without demonstrating a relevant reason. But such a change can only happen once in a lifetime and solely encompasses first names. Surname changes have also been made more flexible, but exclusively by allowing the recovery and inclusion of ancestral surnames. Brazilian law therefore no longer reflects a rigid immutability model, even if surnames remain harder to change than forenames. In HDE 7.091/EX, the Court considered it understandable and reasonable that the applicant adopted anglophone first and last names in the United States in order to avoid possible discrimination in the country of his new nationality. The change did not harm any relevant public or third-party interest.
From a comparative perspective, the decision sits at an interesting point. In Common Law jurisdictions, name change is generally available with considerable freedom, often through unilateral instruments such as a deed poll, subject to modest administrative formalities. In Germany and Austria, by contrast, name changes are treated as exceptional and typically require an ‘important or relevant reason’ under public-law procedures. Christian von Bar’s comparative study Gemeineuropäisches Privatrecht der natürlichen Person (pp. 567–604) illustrates precisely the different models regarding name change. Some systems conceptualise the name primarily as an element of personal identity. Others see it as a structured institution embedded in family and public-order concerns. Brazil’s domestic law still reflects elements of the latter approach. Yet in recognition proceedings, Brazil’s highest Court with private law jurisdiction clearly opted for continuity of status formed at the domicile.
The decision is also consistent with a long Brazilian tradition of construing public policy narrowly in cross-border cases. As noted in a recent article, Brazilian law was frequently referenced in Ernst Rabel’s writings. For instance, Rabel noted how Brazilian Courts would recognise foreign divorces at a time when divorce was not yet permissible in Brazil. HDE 7.091/EX fits that pattern: foreign status effects may be recognised even when domestic law would not have produced the same result internally.
Ultimately, HDE 7.091/EX is a restrained and technically precise decision. It does not liberalise Brazilian internal surname law. It does not dissolve the state’s control over civil status. What it does is confirm that ordre public remains a high threshold in recognition proceedings of foreign rulings. In an era of increasing personal mobility and multi-layered identities, this approach reinforces a central intuition of private international law: the stability of personal status across borders is itself a value worthy of legal protection.
Thank you for this interesting report. If I may offer a minor correction: the name change proceeding was in the Supreme Court of New York for Suffolk County (New York calls its first-instance court the “Supreme Court”), not the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, which is what Massachusetts calls the single-justice session of its highest appellate court.
Life is not as easy as it appears to be. Law adds to the complexities. Prof Dr João Costa-Neto and Dr Pedro Pagano Payne’s post points out how difficult it is for an individual even to change his or her name after moving from one jurisdiction. It is a long saga replete with ordeals.
In Common Law systems, name change is relatively less cumbersome, usually via unilateral instruments, of course subject to few administrative clearances. In Civil Law jurisdictions such as Germany and Austria, name changes are, however, treated as exceptional and therefore, necessitate an ‘important or relevant reason’ under public-law procedures. Thus, for some legal systems, it is basically an element of personal identity while for others it is part and parcel of a structured institution that is rooted in family and wider public-order concerns. Although Brazil is a civil law jurisdiction, in recognition proceedings, it is commendable that Brazil’s apex Court with private law jurisdiction undoubtedly preferred continuity of status formed at the domicile. Therefore, stability of personal status across borders is itself a value worthy of legal protection, aptly remark the authors.
Thank you for your interesting post.
This decision is perhaps an example of the difficulties we have in Latin-America in determining the right recognition method for foreign decisions which perhaps do not have a contentious nature, as well as other acts of civil status. Subjecting them to exequatur procedures may be fine, but recognition judges will then have to juggle with controlling indirect jurisdiction, questions of effectiveness and res judicata or due notice of claims, in cases in which these elements are not self-evident in the foreign procedure. It also highlights problems in controlling the right requisites after deciding which method to use. If controlling the foreign judgment through art 963 of the Brazilian CPC, an analysis of the applicable law under art 7 of LINDB seems odd. Controlling applicable law to vested rights in matters of status could undermine the very principle of continuity. This is why Latin-American countries have recognition clauses (see art. 7 of the Inter-American Convention on General Rules of PIL) to correct the results created by their conflict-of-law rules when generating limping situations.
In Venezuela, we suffer from the same problems that our Brazilian friends. However, the treatment of public policy made by the judgment is indeed encouraging. Thank you again for sharing your analysis!