First child passport application from abroad after MN1 registration -- supporting documents

[EconomistPhD]

Hello all,

my son was born in the UK, and successfully registered in 2019 as a British Citizen after I received ILR through the EU settlement scheme. (My wife got ILR later and also naturalised as a BC, I never did; but none of this influenced the MN1 application). However, we never applied for a British passport for our son. We then moved abroad in between Covid-19 lockdowns.

We now want to apply for his first British child passport, and the question is whether applications sent from abroad have the same requirements (and processing times) as those sent from an UK address? We would like to do an online application, and for those the list of supporting documents only seems available after sending in the application. However, we would like to know this before... We have heard that it might be more complicated to do this from abroad, without being specific. We currently live in France.

In terms of supporting documents, our application also a bit of a special case as far as names are concerned: my son has already two passports (mother + father's birth countries) but with different last names. There is no possibility for a name change in either of these countries -- both have very strict but incompatible name laws (German + traditional Spanish naming conventions). The Registration Certificate was issued in one of the two existing passport names; and we would apply for the passport to be issued in the same name. Not sure if relevant, but the birth certificate was issued in yet another name (a different spelling of the German surname which I use anywhere but in Germany, and which both of us used in the UK. It turns out that we cannot make this our family name either for us our our children, though). If anyone who reads this has come across a similar issue: should we send any additional supporting documents (cover letter?) to address the name problem?

Thanks for any advice you might have -- this board has been invaluable for us in UK immigration matters throughout the years, and this is the first time I could not find an answer in a previous post !!