Baby names rejected by French registrars

[ShadowPuppets]

Apparently in France the registrars have quite a strict set of criteria for baby names and this list has been published as names rejected by them in 2021...

Fraise
Nutella
Anomalie
Titeuf
Prince-William
Bob l'eponge
Excel
Metallica
Asterix
Spirou
CR7
Lucifer
Clafoutis
Manhattan
Anal
Mini-Cooper
Daisygual
Fleur de Marie
Folavril
MJ

Some of them seem quite innocuous to me after hanging out on this board! No Balonz, sadly . I do wonder about whoever tried to register their child under the French version of 'SpongeBob SquarePants'....

The main surprise for me was that I actually think Anomalie for a girl is quite pretty Thank god this pregnancy is a DS or DH might have been overruling me!

Source - quite interesting background on the French rules if Twitter's translate button is accurate! twitter.com/fenarinarsa/status/1493578412279087114

@Classica

Well it all seems very high and mighty from a country that thinks Fanny is an a-okay name for a girl.

Slang comes from people's names as well as everyday items.

Oh and the name's origin is apparently French.

@Classica

Well it all seems very high and mighty from a country that thinks Fanny is an a-okay name for a girl.

Peter means fart in French. So, you know, people in glass houses and all that.

Is Mj something to do with starwars?

To be fair when you read the twitter thread lots of people are surprised at Fraise not being ok. Clémentine is a really common name. I knew a Prune.

Peter means fart in French. So, you know, people in glass houses and all that.

Difference being that banning names isn't so much a thing in the UK...

@seperatedmum

exactly; caries is tooth decay not Carrie and we never say "a Carie" we say "a site of caries"

Caries in English is carie in French.

@Classica

Peter means fart in French. So, you know, people in glass houses and all that.

Difference being that banning names isn't so much a thing in the UK...

No it isn't. But you are saying that Fanny is a weird name. It's no more weird to French people than Peter is to English people. There's no high ground to be occupied by saying that Fanny is, today, not a great name in the English speaking world. I don't think it was weird when Jane Austen wrote Mansfield Park either. Names aren't banned in France anyway, they are rejected, usually to protect the child from ridicule. Perhaps British parents are just more sensible, but some of the names on that list are just cruel in French.

I know a baby Ariya. Next one could be Qashqai.

For those wondering
Fleur de Marie = being a virgin

You can see why they said no…

Bob l'eponge!

I'll never call SpongeBob anything else from now on.

@seperatedmum

exactly; caries is tooth decay not Carrie and we never say "a Carie" we say "a site of caries"

I don't understand this comment of course we say une carie. Une carie dentaire?

Names aren't banned in France anyway, they are rejected, usually to protect the child from ridicule. Perhaps British parents are just more sensible, but some of the names on that list are just cruel in French.

Banned, rejected. no real difference.

What is cruel about MJ?

It's the same in Portugal. Someone I know wanted to register their DS as Danny and not Daniel. They were told he would have to be registered as Daniel.

I'm assuming that names that are initials (like MJ) are not allowed in France in the same way that numbers aren't allowed in the UK

@Classica

Names aren't banned in France anyway, they are rejected, usually to protect the child from ridicule. Perhaps British parents are just more sensible, but some of the names on that list are just cruel in French.

Banned, rejected. no real difference.

What is cruel about MJ?

I think MJ is the name of a fictional character (Spider-Man). It might well have been rejected just because of that

@BeefSupreme

I don't see how the names Fleur De Marie and Daisygual are that bad that they'd ruin a child's life. Is the name Astrid allowed in France because it's not that different to Asterix?

Bob L'eponge though

Asterix is a very very famous French cartoon book series. Asterix is a little Gaul known for bashing Romans and hunting wild boar with his friends Obelix and Dogmatix (English - idefix in French)

Astrid is a common name in Germanic and Scandinavian countries.

Also Astrid and Astérix are miles apart in French!

I used to love the comic Spirou when I was a kid.

Some of those banned names are hideous but a friend of mine was told Megan was banned for her daughter as it was a car’s name!

This might be one of the most patronising threads of all time. I don’t think anyone needs Anomalie translating, or Astérix MNsplained to them.

@Classica

Names aren't banned in France anyway, they are rejected, usually to protect the child from ridicule. Perhaps British parents are just more sensible, but some of the names on that list are just cruel in French.

Banned, rejected. no real difference.

What is cruel about MJ?

Banned, rejected, no it's doesn't really matter, I suppose it would matter if you came to live in France with one of the rejected names. MJ apparently was for Michael Jackson and they didn't accept the initials.

@blameitonthecaffeine

Don't see anything banworthy about Fraise? Is it not common to use flowers, fruits, plants etc as names in other languages?

Some of the others though

Do names ever get refused in the UK?

no, its not allowed.

I wish they’d do similar here, to stop so many poor kids being saddled with God-awful names, because the parents want something look-at-me and yooneek.

I don’t know whether it’s still the case, but IIRC in Greece there was a permitted list of names and you couldn’t use any others.

IIRC they were all, or mostly, saints’ names.

It used to be required that every child had the name of a saint . If the parents didn't supply one, the registrar would.

@godmum56

It used to be required that every child had the name of a saint . If the parents didn't supply one, the registrar would.

My post relates to France, no idea about Greece.