Text of the provision
Art. 379. The employment of pen names or stage names is permitted, provided it is done in good faith and there is no injury to third persons. Pen names and stage names cannot be usurped.
Civil Code of the Philippines, Republic Act No. 386, approved June 18, 1949, effective August 30, 1950. Reproduced in full; verified verbatim against the LawPhil and ChanRobles official-text renderings.
What this article means
Pen names and stage names are permitted, provided they are adopted in good faith and injure no third person. Once taken, a pen name or stage name cannot be usurped by anyone else.
The good faith condition means the pen name or stage name must not be chosen to deceive the public, to injure a third person, or to trade off someone else’s established identity — the sort of concern also underlying the usurpation rule in Article 377. Once a name has been adopted in good faith and without such injury, the article gives it its own protection: like a person’s actual name, it “cannot be usurped,” meaning another person may not later appropriate it.
Questions about this provision
Related provisions
- Article 378 — Unauthorized Use of a Surname.
- Article 381 — Provisional Representative for Absentee.
Cases interpreting this article
- Authorities on this article will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.