Chris Green wrote:
I am not quite clear what you are getting at here Ryan. In the UK one may change one's name by deed poll (without resort to lawyers - it's relatively straightforward, I've done it). So it is perfectly possible for a John Smith to become, say, Count Cagliostro, though whether that would be accepted for the purposes of a British passport is entirely up to the Passport Office (and if they said OK, the Count would be as a forename not a title.
It is the policy of the passport office, where a forename may be mistaken for a title, to place a note in the "observations" page in the passport.
In cases where an applicant has adopted a description of a title of nobility as a forename the observation to be entered is:
• THE REFERENCE TO .............................................. IS TO THE HOLDER'S NAME AND NOT TO THE HOLDER'S TITLE.(e.g. LORD; SIR; BARON; ETC.)
This observation should automatically be placed in the passport of any such applicant and there is no need to contact them // snip//
I'm not sure whether the UK passport office would place an observation on someone with Count as a forename as Count is not a title in the UK peerage.