Thai vs. A-z Romanized Documents

Practically all official information in Thailand is in the Thai alphabet, not romanized A-z. (The Thai alphabet is derived from sanskrit and pali, and is 44 characters.) The A-z version of adoption related papers is just something romanized so that foreigners can read the name, but generally there is no way to search by the romanized version in official records, and anywhere the romanized version is available as a side note, it may differ from other places the person's name is recorded. For example, on dual language highway signs, you can see the name of a city down the road spelled several different ways on subsequent signs in A-z, but of course always spelled the same way in Thai. Likewise for names. We are able to transliterate surnames from A-z to Thai quickly in about 70% of cases, and eventually in about 90% of the cases (the other 20% requiring a lot more work), but it can significantly reduce our work if you can get the Thai version of the name from an official document.

Besides adoption tracing ... If you do any more official matters in Thailand, whether it be adopting another child from Thailand, living in Thailand, or any kind of work or business here, it is very important to standardize the way that foreign names are spelled in Thai -- i.e., how to write your name in Thai -- as well as transliterate the Thai name into A-z of every indigenous Thai person in your family or business -- i.e., how to write a Thai person's name in English/European.

This has affected people applying for immigration, as well as purely domestic business, financial, and personal matters.

Legally, the spelling must be the exact same between all documents for both languages.

Always double check spelling every time without assuming that all officials are so diligent. If you fail to do this, then your paperwork processing may come to a halt at a later step, requiring you go back and make some official changes before you can cross the next hurdle.

Over time, the Thai government has become increasingly strict about this, due to various problems of records being misfiled, mistaken identity, and other complications and difficulties.

While in some instances variations are overlooked or ignored, in other cases they are taken seriously and must be fixed by officially going back and fixing one a past error at another location. Foreigners who move to Thailand to live and work often have had a big problem due to a very small difference in the way their name is written in Thai between birth certificate of a child, marriage certificate (and divorce certificate), bank book, company documents, work permit and tax ID card, power of attorney, and other documents, often requiring delays and a lot of running around to fix officially. Double check everything that officials do because they also make mistakes in spelling in creating new documents, especially since there's no standard way to spell a foreign name in Thai so that a foreign name is normally unique in Thai and often very strange.

It is recommended that you keep a clearly printed name in both languages on the same sheet in your wallet, for when you may need to fill in any document in Thai. Even if you fill in something in A-z, such as opening a new bank account or phone number, it is good to give the staff a copy of this sheet even if they don't ask, because back behind the scenes they may transliterate the name for you their own way, without thinking about the possible consequences to you of a small error. Private sector staff normally will not ask a foreigner to spell their name in Thai, just assuming you will give the usual clueless response, and/or to just expedite or simplify their job.

It is very important to always double check government paperwork, too, without assuming officials were so diligent.

For a simple example of how a little difference can cause a big problem and lot of running around, officials in one district even had a divorce certificate spelled a slightly different way from a marriage certificate, all of which was done at the exact same office by the same officials, and despite multiple officials reviewing it at that district office for official approval. This delayed consummation of a marriage in another district which noticed this -- requiring several days of running around to 4 other places -- fixed back at old provincial district office, new document pair created by translation agency, officially stamped from the western embassy, officially stamped by Thai Foreign Ministry, then back to the marriage district. That was a relatively simple case. In other cases, a name was spelled one way for a few years on a series of documents, then there was a slight change and it was spelled another way on subsequent documents, whereby the person needed to do a whole lot more running around to make all important documents consistent.

The first time you transliterate a name, you should seek a professional translator who you can trust, not just a highly educated Thai or any official. Actually, there are many officials and cheap "professional" translators who create a significantly less than optimal transliteration. While it may be too difficult to find a leading translator who knows the de facto standards (there is no one standard, but there are just a few sets of rules which have been followed), you can usually find a thoughtful and diligent translator, in the Thai government, the private sector, and academia. Our company, Export Quality Services Co., Ltd., has a longstanding professional translation division at www.ThaiEnglish.com and alternatively, the authors of several books for foreigners on the Thai language are remarkably reachable and cordial. People who know somebody who has experienced this problem will usually be very helpful and careful.

If you have already used a western name transliterated into Thai on any official document, or any Thai name romanized on any official document, then do not improve nor in any way change the way it is transliterated. Standardize on that transliteration.

If you already have multiple documents with different transliterations, then you may want to investigate the potential seriousness of the problem and, if necessary, how to correct the problem before you put yourself into a time sensitive or potentially very expensive and inconvenient situation. In many cases, it may be acceptable to have a different transliteration, but there are instances where it may cause a process to come to a sudden halt. If you must make the documents consistent, then you will need to choose which spelling to accept and which to fix, usually based on which fix is more convenient.

The Thai script consists of 44 characters, derived from Pali and Sanskrit. Many letters are redundant. English has 26 letters with fewer options but less redundancy (S vs. C, F vs. Ph, etc.). Just like English has a lot of exceptions, so does Thai. In many words and names, Thai "L" and "R" letters are pronounced like an "N" (and transliterated both ways by different groups), as one example. It's way beyond the scope of this page to discuss the Thai language in much detail at all, but suffice it to say that it has its own ideosyncracies just like all other languages.

Over time, there has been an increased effort to standardize spellings in A-z. However, it hasn't been so successful. You can still drive down highways and see the dual language highway signs whereby the A-z spelling varies from sign to sign, but of course the Thai spelling is always exactly the same. That was done by the same government division. Worse, try comparing maps. Even worse, ask a company for their full address. There is Chatuchak Market and there is Jatujak Market (and JJ Mall), same place. The main city of northeast Thailand is Nakhon Ratchasima or Nakorn Rajasima. Not just names but also titles! Nakhon or Nakorn. Central districts Muang and Mueang. Amphur or Amphoe. "Same same."

About the former Phayatai Orphanage, we have been asked many times how to spell the name of the orphanage because people see it spelled many ways. The answer is to spell it the way you have it on other documents. It's spelled a few different ways in A-z, such as Phayatai, Phayathai, Phyathai, Payatai, etc. (The Ph is pronounced like a P, not an F.) The "Thai" in "PhayaTHAI" is not spelled the same way in the Thai language as the word "Thai" and it's not the same word. The word is pronounced Pie-ya-tie. (Thais throw in a lot of h's into words, but they are silent.)

Take a common Thai first name, and you will usually find different ways that Thais will spell it. Achara vs. Atchara vs. Ajchara ... spelled one way in Thai, but in A-z can be 3 or more ways.

One school of thought will argue their set of rules, another school of thought argue a different set. It was all Muang until some official came along and ordered everybody to change it to "Mueang". So what was once over 90% Muang is now about 50-50. New documents have Mueang. Old documents plus contemporary dissenters have Muang.

This persists to this day. There are no official rules for transliteration which are universally recognized. There are some sets of rules which are fairly widely accepted, but they don't cover a lot.

We normally have no problem with first names no matter how badly they are romanized. They can spell it Achara or Atchara or Ajchara but we will know the one and only way to spell it in Thai. However, the last names are where the challenges often come in, because there is such a variety of last names, and last names tend to be longer than first names, some much longer.

Only about 100 years ago, most Thais had no last name. The government tried to create as many unique surnames as feasible. Of course, officials spread over a country 1800 km tall and 800 km wide were not networked 100 years ago, but they did an excellent job of minimal duplication. Some surnames are very long. Most names have a meaning and are in modern words. Some are in old Thai words, some have Chinese meaning, some have personal or regional meanings, and some are in regional dialects of Thai. The good news is that we don't have any names like Smith or Wong or Singh. The bad news is that we get a lot of surnames which are difficult to transliterate between Thai and romanized A-z. However, the names which can be recognized as having meaning and a particular spelling is about 70% of all surnames. Those which have a small variety of meanings/spellings is about 20%, thereby multiplying our search needs. Approximately 10% are very difficult to transliterate, and so there is a great benefit to getting the Thai version.

If we can get the Thai version of a documents, this step is very easy not matter what the surname is, and one hurdle has been crossed.

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