Section 1561: Child's right to use a family name
Statutory text (Thai original)
บุตรมีสิทธิใช้ชื่อสกุลของบิดาในกรณีที่บิดาไม่ปรากฏ บุตรมีสิทธิใช้ชื่อสกุลของมารดา
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
A child has the right to use the family name of the father. In case the father is unknown, a child has the right to use the family name of the mother.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 1561 is part of Book 5 (Family) of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. This entry is awaiting firm-authored commentary; the statutory text above is verbatim from the Office of the Council of State (OCS Krisdika) Thai source, with the English translation from the FAO/UN FAOLEX repository. Always rely on the Thai original for legal proceedings.
Why this matters in practice
For lawyers: Section 1561 confers a right to USE a family name; it does not itself provide any mechanism for choosing, allocating or changing one, which is governed by the Person Name Act B.E. 2505. Note also that the section's condition is that the father is not known, which is not the same test as legitimacy. For clients: your child may use the father's family name, and may use the mother's family name where the father is not known. Registering a surname, or changing one later, is done at the district office under the Person Name Act and not under this section. The Marriage Equality Act has left the position for children of same-sex married couples awaiting administrative guidance.
Legislative history
Section 1561 reflects the traditional surname rule. The Marriage Equality Act (No. 24, B.E. 2567), in force 22 Jan 2025, has created interpretive questions for children of same-sex married couples; regulatory guidance from the relevant authorities is expected to address surname allocation in such cases.
Cited in 5 Supreme Court decisions (1974 to 2014)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 3663/2554 (2011)
- Decision 11274/2553 (2010)
- Decision 1283/2522 (1979)
- Decision 2159/2517 (1974)
- Decision 8611/2557 (2014)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 1561 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 1561. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1561/ (accessed 28 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 1561 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1561/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1561/"><p>A child has the right to use the family name of the father. In case the father is unknown, a child has the right to use the family name of the mother.</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 1561 (Thailand): <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-1561/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.