Why Indian immigrants' 1st names sometimes end up as XXX on Canadian passports

Safa Khan didn't think her Canadian passport would prove to be such a hassle when she first moved from Delhi to London, Ont., nearly 10 years ago.

Khan received her Canadian passport earlier this year, with her full name — first, middle and last — shown as Safa Jamaluddin Khan printed in the surname field. Her first name on the official document reads XXX.

"I didn't realize they had taken all my name as my surname," said Khan, a mother of two and a physiotherapy student at Western University. "It's very common in Canada that when they don't understand the names, they put all together in the surname."

Khan's Indian passport showed her three names listed on one line as well, which is common in that country, since many Indian citizens only have one name.

Khan's husband and son also have the first name XXX on their Canadian documents.

She hopes that by speaking out, Canadian officials will fix an old problem that can affect people arriving in Canada from India.

Shalini Konanur, lawyer and executive director at the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario in Toronto, said she sees a lot of people at the legal clinic who are dealing with the first-name issue.

"The problem actually goes back to the original documents. There are many parts of India, including my own family, where we don't have last names in India — massive parts, most of southern India," Konanur said.

But because Canadian immigration officials are required to fill out a first and last name, the first-name field is often left blank or reads XXX.

And that can cause problems.

"There are so many parts of our system that where somebody looks at your document, they won't even accept it because they don't see a first name and a last name," Konanur said.

"When the individual has one name, and their name cannot be divided into two parts, the name will be displayed on the surname field on the passport booklet," said Isabelle Dubois, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). "This is consistent with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)'s guidelines and facilitates future name searches."

According to IRCC, there are 9,365 Canadian passports with XXX listed in the given-name field. That doesn't include passports where the first name is left blank.

In a followup email late Monday, another IRCC spokesperson, Peter Liang, said passport holders with XXX as their first name can return their valid passport and have it replaced with a blank in their given-name field at no extra charge.