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I'm currently filling a Italian passport request form, but I'm at a roadblock

My question is the following :

I was born in Paris, France

  • Paris, France is what is written in my birth certificate and other official French papers
  • Parigi, Francia is the Italian translation

A relative's Italian paper ID card mentions the French writing of the city name (Paris) but the Italian translation of France (Francia)

What should I write on my paperwork? The French original way, the Italian translation or a mix of both?

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    Usually you write the country name in the local language and the city or town in the original, but Paris is large and well-known enough that you shouldn't have a problem either way.
    – xngtng
    Feb 21, 2022 at 10:54

3 Answers 3

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Odds are pretty high whatever you write will end up on the passport as is, so I'd suggest you write it the way you want to see it.

In your case, "Paris" will be universally recognized, while "Parigi" will not be.

Anecdotally, when my son was born, his birthplace was technically Obscuresuburb, which happens to share a postcode with Wellknowncity. So I registered his place of birth as Wellknowncity, and that's what's been written on his passport ever since.

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    I am not sure about Italy, but some European countries use your place of birth, in the lack of some kind of numerical id for your person (e.g. social security number), as a part of the 'key' to your identity. Whatever translation you choose to use in the application, just make sure that you stick with that name in other documents to prevent someone from treating you as two identities.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Feb 21, 2022 at 12:46
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    @Tor-EinarJarnbjo Thanks for the advice. In any way, to prevent any issues, I will write the form 3 times, with three different combinations, bring them to the appointment and let them tell me which combination is accepted
    – Nicolas Formichella
    Feb 21, 2022 at 12:52
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    Oh, consistency is so important, @Tor-EinarJarnbjo! I work with end-user supplied information all the time and try to match it up to other end-user supplied information and people use a wide variety of versions of their own names on different documents. Many times, I don't have a unique identifying ID list a SSN, so matching based solely on name and date of birth when one document says "Kim" and another says "Kimberly" is so much fun...
    – FreeMan
    Feb 21, 2022 at 17:53
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    @FreeMan, Martha shinesolutions.com/2018/01/08/… should be mandatory reading for anyone who needs to deal with names in programming/database design. (Most of it applies to addresses/streetnames too.)
    – Tonny
    Feb 22, 2022 at 9:09
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    @Tor-EinarJarnbjo If obtaining a Codice Fiscale (tax code) is relevant to OP, they should make sure that their tax code ends with Z110X (the final X can be any letter, is a checksum, Z110 is the code for France). Otherwise it means they fucked up something. Unfortunately there is no way to request a specific tax code, so by the time they will be able to see if it was recorded correctly it will already be issued but at least they will know if everything is fine or not. The fact that OP was born in Paris is irrelevant for the tax code (town is only used for birth inside Italy)
    – GACy20
    Feb 23, 2022 at 8:44
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I went to my appointment at the consulate and asked the employee which form is valid.

They entered (or it was pre-entered like so) Paris, FRANCIA in the database (which is the same as what is in my AIRE registration) with Paris (FRA) written on the passport.

I believe that only the country is to be translated from original (likely in order to have a valid address that all postal services involved can understand because Parigi is not a French city)

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    Thanks for taking the time to post what happened!
    – lambshaanxy
    Feb 23, 2022 at 7:19
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The data you put in the form will end up in an Italian database and checked against data written in Italian. Since cases of homonymy are very common in Italy date and place of birth constitute an important part of your ID. So, you should write the Italian name of the city.

If the form data will be entered manually probably the employee will translate the name, but chances are that it will be scanned and entered automatically, then an employee may or may not fix it.

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    This makes no sense. Passports are used and checked overseas, not in Italy.
    – lambshaanxy
    Feb 22, 2022 at 13:13
  • @lambshaanxy An application for a passport means that the authorities do some background checks to verify that the applicant has no criminal records, pending debts and so on. Most searches are carried on via Codice Fiscale, a unique identifier initially created for tax reason, but then used for all the government services. That code is generated taking the place of birth into account. Actually I can't remember whether for people born abroad they use the name of the city or the country, but with the Italian bureaucracy you better make things as simple as possible.
    – FluidCode
    Feb 22, 2022 at 13:23

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