Messi kids still run into a legal wall in Argentina. Only 11 Argentine citizens or legal foreign residents had Messi as a first name as of June 2025, and the rule that blocks the name remains in force.
Hector Varela and Lorena Sanchez got around it once in 2014, but only after petitioning the civil registry office in Río Negro province for an exemption for Messi David Varela. Their case is the exception that proves how narrow the lane still is for parents who want the name.
1969 rule still controls
Argentina enacted the naming statute in 1969, and it bars surnames from being used as first names. That is the legal reason Messi stays off most birth certificates, even in a country where Lionel Messi is celebrated in murals, songs, and tattoos.
Varela said in September 2014, “This was more of a statement,” and that is exactly how the decision reads: not as a mass trend, but as a single family forcing a tiny opening in a rigid system. As of June 2025, all 11 people recorded with Messi as a first name were 19 years old or younger.
Santa Fe draws the line
When Hector Varela and Lorena Sanchez received permission in 2014, other expecting parents in Santa Fe began making similar requests. The head of the Santa Fe civil registry office turned them down and said, “Using surnames as first names is prohibited by law because it can cause confusion.”
Santiago Williams, a Buenos Aires-based attorney, said, “The law itself is national and uniform, it doesn't vary by region,” but enforcement does. He added that the Messi case showed the split plainly, since one province allowed it while another, almost at the same time, rejected near-identical requests.
11 names, one exception
The numbers show how limited the workaround is. Argentina's national registry of persons counted 205 American citizens with the first name Messi, 265 people in France, 363 Brazilians, and 3,402 residents of Peru, while Argentina itself had just 11 such names.
That same registry also listed more than 100,000 people from Argentina named Lionel, and about 87% of them were 19 or younger. Parents in Argentina clearly know how to honor Messi without crossing the line; the law just keeps drawing that line at the surname itself.
Messi David Varela remains the clearest proof of how the system works: a provincial exemption can create one legal outlier, but it does not change the national rule for everyone else. For parents who want the tribute without the paperwork fight, Lionel still gets the green light while Messi does not.
