Put Iceland, Germany, Japan, Spain, Korea and a U.S. state on one table. The columns are inventory, surname logic, change path.
That table is the worldwide view. A blended “strictness score” is less useful than the columns.
Regions
- Iceland — Committee + patronymics
Highest-profile given-name inventory; last element usually not a frozen surname.
- Germany — Namensrecht
Welfare tests and detailed family-name options.
- Japan — Koseki + jinmeiyō
Household file and character inventory; married surname unity.
- Spain & much of LATAM — Two surnames
Transmission rules as naming law.
- Korea — Court change + family register
Adult petitions exist; 돌림자 is social design, not a luck statute.
- United States — State patchwork
Lower birth-name friction, uneven change friction.
Laws
- Icelandic personal names act + committee Iceland — The emblematic list regime.
- German Namensrecht Germany — The emblematic standard-and-welfare regime.
- Japanese Family Register Act + jinmeiyō Japan — The emblematic household-and-character regime.
- Spanish civil-code surname articles Spain — The emblematic two-surname regime.
Legal friction is local. The atlas’s job is to name the local veto.