Can an EGN be checked by name?

What an online check verifies

Any check that works only with the ten digits, fake.bg's included, can establish three things:

• whether the first six digits form a real date (with the century rule: month 21–32 for births up to 1899, 41–52 for births from 2000);
• the sex from the ninth digit: even for male, odd for female;
• whether the tenth digit, the check digit, matches the first nine.

If all three hold, the number is “valid” in the sense of being correctly formed. It does not mean it has been issued, or that it belongs to the person whose name sits next to it. Hundreds of thousands of well-formed numbers exist for every birthday.

Who certifies that an EGN belongs to someone

Under Article 11 of the Civil Registration Act, the EGN is an administrative identifier that determines each person uniquely, and its correctness is certified by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works through the territorial GRAO units. In the procedures for assigning and changing an EGN, a document called a “Certificate of correct EGN” is issued (Regulation No. RD-02-20-9/2012).

The EGN, together with name, date and place of birth, sex and citizenship, is part of the basic civil-registration data (Article 8 of the Act). In other words, the “name ↔ EGN” link is personal data held by GRAO and the institutions that work with it. A public lookup that shows someone else's EGN by name is not part of that system.

Does an EGN reveal the place of birth?

The current regulation describes digits 7–9 as “a unique combination of digits for the day — a number from 000 to 999”, with the ninth marking sex. It says nothing about regions. The “EGN by city” tables found online come from older practice. That's why /en/egn labels the region as indicative only, and for people born after 2000 you shouldn't rely on it.

When an EGN is changed

The regulation provides for a change when the number doesn't match the birth certificate: a mismatch in the date of birth or in sex (Article 114). GRAO units make the change. Other changes in a person's registration status don't produce a new EGN (Article 106).

In practice

• If someone asks for your EGN “for verification” by email or phone, ask which institution and on what legal basis. Your number is personal data.
• Test software with generated numbers, not real ones. Those from /en/egn have a correct check digit but may coincide with a real person's number by chance, so they are not for documents.
• If you suspect the EGN in one of your documents is wrong, contact the municipality of your permanent address or the GRAO unit.

Sources

• Civil Registration Act, Art. 8 and 11 (in Bulgarian)
• Regulation No. RD-02-20-9 of 21.05.2012 on ESGRAON, Art. 104, 106, 114 (in Bulgarian)