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Naming children - should the state step in?

zooterkin

Nitpicking dilettante, Administrator
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zooterkin
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Should the state have any say in what parents name their children? New Zealand apparently does:

A nine-year-old girl whose parents named her Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii was put into court guardianship in New Zealand so that her name could be changed.

A family court judge, Rob Murfitt, gave the order after hearing that the child was embarrassed about her name and had refused to reveal it to friends. "She told people her name was K because she feared being mocked and teased," the child's lawyer, Colleen MacLeod, told the court.

The judge criticised parents who give their offspring bizarre names, saying it exposed children to ridicule among their peers.
Click to expand...
 
Denmark have a "Name book" with approved names for kids.
There are a few thousand to choose from and it is possible to get new ones added.
 
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I don't think it appropriate for the state to determine what names are acceptable for a child.

However, I think when it comes to registering a birth you might have a cooling-off period of say, a week, whereby the registrar can veto any names which are, by any reasonable definition according to the culture to which the parents belong, ludicrous/offensive/etc, in the hope that they see sense.

If after seven days, they still wish to register under that name, so be it.
 
They used to control the names here in Belgium, but now it's a free for all. I'm against it. A name that exists in another culture is fine but I know two unfortunate kids by the names of Frodo and Heavenleigh.
 
What you want to name yourself when you're an adult should be pretty damn open. What you want to name the kids, not so much.

And if I'm not mistaken, that's pretty much how the rules work around here in Norway.
 
Of course, sometimes making up a name from whole cloth works. One example is "Madison", which did not exist as female first name[1] before 1984. Girls naming "Madison" began when movie "Splash" came out -- the mermaid names herself that when she sees "Madison Avenue" street sign.

[1] Very rarely, boys were name Madison
 
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I think the state already has some say. I believe in the US you cannot name a child "5", but "Five" is okay.

But "bizarre names that expose a child to ridicule from peers"? Kids will make fun of almost any name.
 
Toke said:
Denmark have a "Name book" with approved names for kids.
There are a few thousand to choose from and it is possible to get new ones added.
Click to expand...

Correct. If you use one from that list, there is no problem, but you can use others, with permission. Once a name is approved, it will be added to the list. There are, currently, nearly 25,000 approved names on the Danish list.

The rules apply to babies, and adults who want to change their name.

... I just checked, and Frodo is on the approved list as a boy's name. :cool:
....so is Gandalf, but not Sauron.

Hans
 
I used to go to school with a kid named Zared. He had a brother named Zeff and a sister named Zara.

He was a heroin addict. Sophomore year he lit the frayed cuff of my jeans on fire during an assembly. We also ate lunch together. His girlfriend was pretty banging.

The end.
 
commandlinegamer said:
However, I think when it comes to registering a birth you might have a cooling-off period of say, a week, whereby the registrar can veto any names which are, by any reasonable definition according to the culture to which the parents belong, ludicrous/offensive/etc, in the hope that they see sense.

If after seven days, they still wish to register under that name, so be it.
Click to expand...

Maybe complete with the complete definition of the word and/or recording of what the name sounds like when pronounced aloud for those parents who want to name their kids something like Androgeny because it sounds pretty or LaSonja without first realizing that it sounds like lasagna.
 
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Names can have quite an effect on one's life.
It is a form of branding after all.

Is it any wonder that Linda Lovelace ended up doing porn?
 
Many yeas ago I had neighbors with "naming issues". The husband had the goal in life to to have a son he could name John Jr.

He ended up with two daughters ... Johndria and Johndrica
 
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