Many Costa Ricans on Friday welcomed a ruling this week by the country’s Supreme Court of Justice eliminating the requirement that people use their father’s surname before their mother’s on identification documents. In Spanish-speaking nations, people usually go by two last names. In Costa Rica, if a man were named JosĂ© and his father’s surname were SuĂĄrez and his mother’s Ortiz, by law he would have been registered as JosĂ© SuĂĄrez Ortiz. The court’s decision maintains the requirement to use both names, but allows citizens to choose the order, giving them the freedom to put the mother’s first, as in Ortiz SuĂĄrez.
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