Consuming uPortal User Attributes as JSR-168 User Attributes

You need to add to your portlet.xml something like

 User Family Name
 user.name.family

where the attribute is the Key mapped within your PersonDirectory.xml or personDirs.xml (see manual chapter on user attributes).

Then from within your Portlet code you can access the values like this

Map userInfo = (Map)request.getAttribute(PortletRequest.USER_INFO);
String surname = (String)userInfo.get("user.name.family");