Resumen de The History and Practice of the Regulations for Changing One's Family Name in Hungary
The aim of the present paper is to analyse the legal regulation and the official procedures of family name changes in Hungary from the beginning of official personal name use until the present days. The study focuses not only on the regulations for name changes but also on their realisation in practice. The paper provides an overview of the historical changes of these regulations and procedures, including their more or less technical details, and the relationship of these factors to ever-changing historical backgrounds. The study devotes special attention to the related onomastic aspects, especially to the restrictions concerning the range of adoptable name types (non-Hungarian sounding names, frequent names, names of archaic spelling, compound surnames and protected names). The reasons behind the principles impacting the restrictions, their changes and the problems that they present in practice are also analysed in detail. The study surveys two centuries of family name changes in Hungary; however, the perspectives and the orientation of the study may well be revealing in terms of certain issues with respect to name changes in other countries
