The bar would be in place up until an offense was wiped from the offender's record, save for in the case of sex offenses against minors, where the name change law would be in place for life.

Interior Minister Igor Taro (Eesti 200), who has sent the draft Personal Names Act for coordination with stakeholders, said: "Prohibiting name changes for criminals who have committed serious crimes helps protect innocent members of society, because it prevents offenders from hiding their actions. This ban applies until the sentence is expunged, the length of which depends on the length of the sentence imposed for the crime. An exception applies to sexual offenses against the sexual self-determination of a minor, for which the ban is lifelong."

The minister added that the bill aims to create legal clarity in the use and changing of personal names and which takes into account modern life and societal expectations, and is sufficiently clear to make its application easier than under current law.

The law would also ban offenders from taking the name of another living person

Enel Pungas,  head of the population operations department at the ministry, said: "In this way, we would prevent possible identity theft and avoid confusion caused by sending various notifications to the wrong person. While cooperation between institutions is based on personal identification codes, communication between people mainly uses names, and confusion can easily arise when people have the same name."

Back in 2019 ERR reported (link in Estonian) on the case of a convicted pedophile who, on his release, changed his name. Kaur Hanson, born 1969, took the new name of Oliver Rist after being released. However there was already an Oliver Rist registered in Estonia, born 1982, and who only learned of the development through the ERR piece.

The new bill, open for coordination until January 23, would prevent such duplication of names happening in the case of serious offenders.

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