As parents of a newborn, you have a legal duty to register your child by way of a “notice of birth” to Home Affairs, making at that stage the important choice of the child’s surname to be recorded in the population register. Whether you are married or not makes no difference to your duty to register the birth, but until now the Births and Deaths Registration Act has prevented an unmarried father from giving the notice under his own surname except with the mother’s consent.

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