Parents name different on passport UK visa

Question

I'm in the UK on a dependent visa for the past 4 years and my parents are applying for their first UK visitor visa, I'm going to sponsor their application but there are discrepancies in my father's name due to the wrong name in my birth certificate written by my maternal grandfather:

father's name on my passport & birth certificate is: YYYY XXXXX and his own passport and all his documents have: XXXXXX. When I filled UK dependant application I followed what was written on my own passport.

My grandfather wrote YYYYY in our names as it's customary in our religion to add that name, my father is going to create an affidavit explaining the situation that both names belong to the same person. Has anyone experienced anything similar, this is stressing me out?

Answer 1

Minor variations in names shouldn't be an issue.

Even I, as a random person on the internet with no particular experience handling personal data, know many people with an extra "Mohammed"/"Muhammad"/"Md"/… among their names that they might or might not be actually using depending on the occasion. Unless your religion is extremely niche, an Entry Clearance Officer probably sees this kind of variation many times a day.

There might be more than just the name linking your birth certificate with your father's passport (perhaps the father's date of birth is in there as well), so it might be already obvious to the ECO that this is the same person. However, adding a short explanation of the situation to your application really can't hurt (at the very least, it could help you relax a bit).

And by the way, make sure to make the rest of the visa application bullet-proof (showing strong ties to your parents' home country, submitting enough bank statements to prove the financial circumstances of both you and your parents, etc.). Sponsored applications are typically weaker to begin with, so everything needs to be properly documented to avoid a refusal. At the very least, review this answer, especially the "Sponsorship" section.