Name consulting service

If a Hungarian citizen intends to register a given name (with another term: Christian name) not contained in the list of the female and male names approved by the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, then the name must be officially requested from the Ministry of Regional Development of Hungary. The request form must either be submitted by post (1358 Budapest, Pf. 19.) or by email (ungbfntv@xgz.tbi.uh).

The given name search service (Utónévkereső, the first and only scientific online open access given name dictionary in Hungary) of the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics allows us to choose between accessible given names according to a number of criteria. Not only can we search and filter names by their initial letters, name days, short forms, number of syllables, phonetic order, vowels or frequency, but we can set several criteria simultaneously.

From 1 July 2023, the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics is also obliged by law to provide expert opinions on surname changes at the request of the Department of Citizenship and Registry Directorate of the Budapest Metropolitan Government Office (see § 49 (4)-(6) of the  Registry Act ). The principles for the linguistic evaluation of given name request and surname change requests are available here (currently only in Hungarian).