Court blocks baby name..... thoughts.....

[sel2223]

Just been reading this article about a Brazilian couple and curious to know what others think

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13847419/amp/parents-banned-naming-baby-historical-figure-bullying-fears.html

Should the courts be able to step in and block parents from using certain names?

Tallulahdoesthehulainhawaii has never left me.

I can't remember whether it was banned or allowed.

Benson and Hedges were banned for twins years ago.

I remember the case of a British couple living in Germany who wanted to call their daughter Gift. It wasn't allowed as the word gift in German means poison.

Danny Dyer gave his daughter the same name as him but spelt differently 😄

Danish parents must choose their child’s name from a list of approximately 7,000 preapproved names or seek approval from the government

One-off the rules is parents cannot give their child a name that will be a hinderence in life.

I can recall in the late 80s a woman wanted to call her son Christophpher and this was not allowed it became a huge big thing as she was adamant it was a normal name with the phph.

I dont mind a list of apoved names as long as you can get to add to it if you want something more unique. In Denmark that's possible.

Good for that tax office.

Nigella Lawson also popped into my head there, though her dear old dad did at least make an effort to feminise it.

I think the whole Tallulah thing was not allowed. Poor child!

You're naming a child not a pot plant.

Parents' feelings are not the most important decision but how the child will be treated by others as a result of the name.

Lucifer, Troll, Skrot and Alkis all appear as given names on the Skatteverket website. No idea why they vetoed Superfastjellyfish, that's going to be my next child's name.

www.skatteverket.se/privat/folkbokforing/namn/bytaefternamn/sokhurmangasomharettvisstnamn.4.515a6be615c637b9aa413027.html

I prefer names of dictators, symbols, etc. banned rather than there being an approved national list. I see the ‘approved’ names here on MN (even the ones from the other languages/cultures I’m familiar with), and most suggestions are made in a very narrow spectrum. There are beautiful and uncommon real names with lovely meanings. And children will find any reasons to bully if they want to.

Nigella is the botanical name for love-in-the-mist, and there's a long tradition of flower names for girls. And plenty of families have family names. Many of the men in my family share a particular middle name.

However, as much as I wouldn't want to call a child Pestilence or something, I like the history of weird religious names from the 17th century and things like that.

Convenient that it's also the feminine form of Nigel, though 😄

Yes, but it's not like he made it up.

A few years ago Iceland refused to accept "Harriet" so the list can't be that big!

Harriet isn't an Icelandic name though, is it?
I assume kids born to immigrant parents get a bit of leeway, but as far as I know, Icelandic natives naming a child in Iceland are obliged to call their children Icelandic names. If the kid is born in London and moves to Iceland aged 10, I doubt they'd force a name change on her.....I hope not!

It was a child with one immigrant (British) and one Icelandic parent. Apparently foreign couples can use names from their culture but if one parent is Icelandic the other parent's culture/naming traditions are irrelevant and the name must be Icelandic.

If one parent is Icelandic and the kid is born in Iceland, at least one given name (but not necessarily all) must be an approved name. So they were being quite difficult because if they'd named her Harriet and then given her a basic second middle name, like Anna or something, they'd have been within the rules.

Or tbh I bet they'd have added it to the list if it was spelt Harríet on official documents, which would make it grammatically similar to Bríet. A big part of whether names are permitted or not is the grammar.

There are actually loads of approved Icelandic names that are pretty stupid.

Plus they frequently approve names that are not of Icelandic origin - it's absolutely not about that. The conditions are:

1. Must have a grammatically logical genitive form.
2. Must not be otherwise ungrammatical.
3. Must be written in accordance with normal Icelandic spelling rules.
4. Must not be a name that could be considered derogatory or humiliating.

So recently approved names include Buffý, Amira, Arló, Santos, Foster and Todor, but Josef was rejected because it should be Jósef (which is already allowed) and Álft (Icelandic word for swan) was rejected because it can be used as an insult.

"Not a class marker"

You're funny.

Are they saying a baby boy can’t have the name because it sounds like a ballet step and that’s too sissy? I think that’s weird and old-fashioned. The name’s not offensive. I could see there might be a problem if it was Satan or something like that,

They did let her parents name her that, a judge let her change it at 9

*It's a new hard line for the agency that made headlines in 2008 when it was revealed to have approved a series of strange monikers, among them Benson and Hedges, twins named after the cigarette brand, and Violence and Number 16 Bus Shelter, both for boys.

One girl was so traumatised by her name, Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii, that she had it legally changed at age nine. In accepting her name change in 2008, Family Court Judge Rob Murfitt said odd names had the ability to scar children as they grew up. ''It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap,'' he said.*
www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/a-devil-of-a-name-put-on-nz-banned-list-20110719-1hn3l.html

Both Tallulahdoesthehulainhawaii and Benson and Hedges were allowed in NZ. A judge let Tallulah change her name at 9. Poor kid, she must have had a pretty horrible experience to want to legally change it at that age. I hope they changed her birth certificate and she's doesn't have to write it as a previous name on official forms. Not something you'd want to relive I imagine.

Oh I didn't realise that about Tallulah. I think the moral of the story should be give yourself a stupid name, not your kids.

She's got a Princess as well!

I understand that the issue in Iceland is that it is an inflected language, and names, like other words, change form depending on the grammatical function of the word in any sentence. The limit on what names you can choose is to ensure that children's names can 'fit' with Icelandic word forms.

I don't think names should be limited to approved lists, as that can discriminate against families with different ethnic identities and naming traditions. However, I do sometimes think it would have benefitted some families if the registrar had had a quiet word ...

In the interests of transparency, my own children have names that have attracted a fair number of negative comments over the years. You can tell when someone hates the name because they say, "That's very... (awkward pause) unusual." They are both real names with long (in one case, 700 years long) histories but unusual enough for people to think I made one up!