Countries have bans on strange baby names

**KenW3** · January 11th, 2012, 01:48 PM

I suppose this falls under the category of learning something new. I always thought Frank Zappa had given his children rather odd names, Dweezil, Moon Unit, but some of the banned names from New Zealand have these beat hands down

New Zealand does not allow what is considered 'crazy' baby names. A list of 102 names have been rejected in the past couple of years. Some of the names have traumatised children with the odd names.

New Zealand bans names that are numerals or punctuation marks, but also bans names that can be considered titles such as judge, baron, and king. Sweden also has a naming law for children's names. While Sweden allowed first names of Google and Lego, they do not allow the name Elvis for some reason.

For New Zealand, I can certainly understand avoiding odd names, but being able to confer a title at birth could increase status amongst royalty. Imagine how much money parents can save on education by just giving their child a first name of Doctor. I am left to wonder if the child's name, Number 16 Bus Shelter, was selected based on where he was conceived?

One girl was traumatised by her name, so she had it legally changed when she was nine. Her original name was 'Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii'. Of course, adults can change their names to anything they want... A 30-year-old guy from the states, named Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop (as this was preferred over Jeffrey Drew Wilschke), was arrested in Wisconsin for a concealed weapon and possession of drugs the day before yesterday

**grynge** · January 11th, 2012, 05:22 PM

I was going to give my daughter 100 names but my wife wouldn't let me. I gathered that if she had them to begin with she could call herself anything she wanted for the rest of her life. Not to mention it would stuff up the governments computers because there is no way the programmers would have given enough space for that amount of names hahahahah

Judge seems a strange one to ban I thought it was quite a common one these days?

**TheodoreK** · January 11th, 2012, 06:10 PM

(damn no time to write a long post but here's the short version)

My grandfather was to be named Lenin but at the very last moment the local priest refused to baptize him with that commie name so they went with Theodore instead :P

**leadegroot** · January 12th, 2012, 04:38 AM

I seem to remember a news story a few years ago that a French name for a child was declined here (.au) because it didn't use the local alphabet - it had an acute or some such in it.

**crabfoot** · January 12th, 2012, 05:23 AM

Anywhere that has been influenced by English law has statutes against names that could be construed as hereditary titles, like Lord, Earl or Baron.

I wonder if the swedes would accept the original spelling of Elvis - after the Welsh saint, Elwys?

**eddiebooth** · January 12th, 2012, 08:36 AM

When I was in school in Ireland there were 2 lads in my class who each had 'Mary' as their middle name

**crabfoot** · January 12th, 2012, 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by eddiebooth

When I was in school in Ireland there were 2 lads in my class who each had 'Mary' as their middle name

It's quite common in catholic countries - Jose Maria Olazebal, for example.

Then there's the famous piece of NY graffiti - IF JESUS WAS A JEW, HOW COME HE HAD A MEXICAN NAME?

**petertdavis** · January 13th, 2012, 11:09 AM

We had some hassles getting EU passports for our kids because the bureaucrats had a problem with their middle names. They insisted the the middle names we have for our kids were only allowed to be used as family names, not middle names. I just figured they were after some bribes, but my wife insisted on sorting it out legally.

**JJMcClure** · January 14th, 2012, 02:12 AM

This was actually on the news here in Frankfurt last night, those parents lost custody of their daughter over it!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandsty...ips.newzealand