I believe the rules in Germany are that the name has to be:
- already in existence as a name, and demonstrably so in your home culture. So the registrar would be more tolerant of us calling our DC an Irish name than a German family with no Irish connections, IYSWIM. This actually happened to us - DD1 has a classical first name which is pretty universal in Western Europe but we chose something Irish as her middle name. We also took along an Irish book of names where it was listed, but in the end the registrar didn't need to see it - the fact that we were not German was enough 'evidence'. However, we later met a German couple whose DD had the same two names, but in reverse order (the Irish name first and universal name second), and the registrar had raised merry hell before finally allowing it. The registrars tend to be quite wary of being accused of racism so are MUCH more generous with non Germans.
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appropriate for the gender of that child So you wouldn't be allowed to call your DD Johannes or Thomas, for instance. There are a few German names which are traditionally used for both sexes, such as Gerrit, so the 'commonly used name' argument seems to trump the 'need' for not causing gender confusion.
- *dignified and respectable, and unlikely to cause humiliation for the child'. So most of the weirder names people try out here would be excluded for that reason. As well as Osama bin Laden, calling your daughter after a football team, that Hula girl in NZ, Zowie Bowie, Moon Unit Zappa, Apple Paltrow etc.
I think most of that makes sense. But sometimes the registrars really get above themselves and interfere too much. A woman once told me she wanted to call her son Max-Philip (these dreaded double names which are absolutely allowed in Germany, unfortunately) and the registrar told her he thought Philip-Max sounded better, so she went along with that instead! That is surely overstepping the mark. On the other hand, the current British obsession with choosing a unique name is frankly bizarre - what's so bad about choosing something in the top 10?