A recent story about a court case in New Zealand caught my attention; a nine year old girl had been taken from the custody of her parent and made a ward of the court. Why you ask? Was she being neglected or abused? It depends on your definition of abuse; authorities had taken her so that her name could be legally changed, you see, in New Zealand names have to be approved and being called Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii did not get the thumbs up.
Over the years in New Zealand six sets of parents have tried to call their baby Lucifer only to be told they couldn’t. In the interests of equality they can’t call their offspring Jesus or Messiah either. To make it easier for parents the country's Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages has released an updated list of rejected baby names, which include; Prince, Princess, Justice, Mafia No Fear and 4Real. For real, someone wanted to name their kid 4Real. Interestingly some parents have managed to still sneak some creative monikers by the name police; Midnight Chardonnay and Number 16 Bus Shelter were both approved.
New Zealand isn’t the only country with laws about naming your baby. A teenage girl in Iceland has been fighting for the right to have her documents show the name she has grown up with; Blaer, which means light breeze in Icelandic. Names there must fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation, Blaer is considered masculine so was not approved. If you are thinking about moving to Iceland, be aware that the letter C does not exist in their alphabet so you can skip that entire chapter in the baby name books! Sweden has also had issues with baby names too, they have a naming law and have nixed attempts to name children Superman, Metallica, and Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116. Apparently the last name is pronounced Albin, but you probably already figured that out. Approved names in Sweden include Lego and Google.
There are no laws about what you can name your baby here, so there are some pretty unusual names out there; For the children that were named Hashtag, Facebook and Like, you know that their parents are into social media. Corleone, Capone and Gotti must have parents that have big plans for their kid’s futures; I hope they look good in orange. And finally there are the adults that were not happy with the names their parents gave them at birth so they legally changed them. In Britain a guy clearly thought his name was not regal enough so he now goes by King Arthur Uther Pendragon. A school bus driver in Illinois changed his first name to In God, and his last name is now We Trust and a New Mexico man was clearly upset about something when he changed his name to F*** Censorship. Except his version has the full expletive. What is the funniest name you have come across?
