Babies called Braxlee, Blayde, Bleu, Tayzia, Tybee, Tyce, Stryker, Stonker, Spartacus, Maysun, Majesty and Mox

[MollyHuaCha]

In Germany, you must be able to tell a child's gender from their first name. You cannot use a surname or the name of an object as a first name.

In Sweden the Naming Law exists to check first names to ensure they do not cause offence or discomfort to the one using it.

In Japan, 'inappropriate' names are banned.

Denmark produces a list of around 7000 approved names. Creative spellings are not allowed.

Iceland rejects baby names that might embarrass the child. Names also need to fit in with Icelandic traditions.

Is it time for all countries to give more guidance to parents naming their children?

I think things are okay the way they are in the UK. Limiting the choice of names to those considered traditional is a bad idea imo because names naturally evolve. If that rule were the case in the UK, we'd all still be called Pippin and Aethelred, wouldn't we?

In the U.K., registrars can refuse a name if they deem it inappropriate can't they?

Swede here. The names that are not acceptable are names that are considered to cause hardship later in life, for example there was a case of a child named a random selection of 25 numbers. I'm pretty certain all the examples in the title would be accepted.

Wankmaster bumbandit is my name of choice.

Maysun?? Really?

Same in France. You have rules about how yu cannot give a child a name that will him/her uncomfortable later in in life (so some totally acceptable names might be rejected because they WILL be a cause of laughter when associated with their family name).
You also cannot use a family name as a first name. So my friend who wanted to use her maiden name as a second name for her dc was rejected.

To make things even more complicated, you can have a child with names 'approved' in the uk, born in the uk so their birth certificate is British. But being born from french parents, they will need to be registered too at the french embassy. That will reject some names and will register them with a different set of name

In theory I think we should all be free to choose our childrens names, but then I think of what monstrosities wankers inflict on their poor kids and I think someone should probably intervene for their sakes.

In my experience, people who criticise naming laws usually don't understand them or even have accurate knowledge of them.

In reality, every country has naming laws and restricts the choices that parents can make. In the UK you would not be able to name your child K8 or Влади́мир for example, for very practical reasons.

In other countries naming laws are also in large part practical, not ideological. It is just that what is practical in English is not always practical for another language.

I'll only speak concerning the laws I am familiar with, but I can let you all know that plenty of legal names in Iceland could embarrass a child (e.g. Ljótur which was fine in Old Norse but in the modern language means Ugly) and names must fit in with Icelandic GRAMMAR and ORTHOGRAPHY, not traditions per se (although tradition is important with regards to last names). There are hundreds of given names that are not at all traditional, taken from all sorts of other languages/cultures. If a name can be made grammatical and spelt in a way that makes sense for Icelandic orthography (which is highly phonetic) then you're good to go.
In addition, the laws do not apply to immigrants in the same way so people with different backgrounds are completely free to name in accordance with their cultures.

Majesty probably would be rejected here as you aren't allowed to use a name that bestows a title such as Lord etc.

I watched a documentary about pregnant women behind bars in.the usa. One had daughters named Jayla Chardonnay and Dazzling Gayle.

Remember the child Tallulah Does the Hula and the court case?

I've noticed a tendency for people to miss out vowels in names and I'm not sure what to make of that.
Do people not hear the
missing vowels? For example Arn (Aaron), Kathryn, Alexnder, Emlee (Emily), etc.

The Swedish rules are about parents not naming their children White Supremacy Adolf Hitler, not about slightly creative spellings. Or, as mentioned above, random numbers.

The Icelandic name rules are a special case, as user above points out, and strictly to do with Icelandic grammar, nothing to do with the names themselves. Icelandic is the only Germanic language which has retained its full system of noun endings. If you start introducing lots of names which don't fit into the system, the whole grammar will collapse and Icelandic will become like English or Swedish with no noun endings. They don't want that as it would cut off their ties with the old literature and culture which is very much part of their identity.

The English are in a different situation as their great literature (Shakespeare onwards) came at a time when the grammatical shift had already happened. Otoh the English are hanging on to their difficult and archaic spelling for pretty similar reasons: if we started spelling phonetically nobody would be able to read Jane Austen anymore.

When I was a child a child named Oskar in Sweden would have been bullied to shreds. Absolutely. We would have howled with laughter at the thought. 40 years later and it's one of the most popular names out there. So the name-registering people clearly passed the first Oskar and let him take his chances. No reason to assume they wouldn't have done the same with Spartacus. Both genuine historical names.

lizzieoak, Kathryn is a very old and recognised variant of Katherine. Goes back to the Middle Ages and has been in consistent use since.

Indeed. I dislike names like Peregrine as much as I dislike Chardonnay but free choice isn't it?

Nice....

What is wrong with that statement Chardonnay?
Unless you are making a joke.

People are free to dislike names but they should learn to understand that its not about what they like and stop hiding behind faux concern for The Children