I recall reading an article a few years back in the Readers Digest (Canadian) magazine. It was about an oriental gentleman in British Columbia who used to be named Henry O (this comment just to avoid period confusion). His full last name was spelled with one letter.
As I recall he was not allowed to get a Drivers License, and I think (but am not sure) that he couldn’t get a Social Insurance Number. As a result he was forced to change his name to Henry Oh.
Now this really has nothing to do with giving names before leaving the hospital, but it is somewhat relevant… for people from British Columbia… in Canada… I can’t find the copy of the magazine, so I can’t quote anything here, just what I remember… anyone else know anything?
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Wow, I think this must win some sort of prize for “Impossible Google Search of the Year”. “Henry Oh” brings up Henry, Ohio. “Henry O” brings up, of course, the author O Henry.
I’ve heard a similar story (I think the first name in this case was Stephen, but I can’t find a website that confirms this).
O is a family name in Korea, this site includes a link to the genealogy of the O family of Naju (unfortunately, the link is to a Korean site, and neither my browser nor my poor tired brain supports Korean).
along the lines of difficult searches, there’s a British band named “Live.” How do you do a google search for its touring schedule? every band on tour is live.
Speaking of hard searches and allowable names-- I seem to remember a story from a few years ago that mentioned that names registered for children went through a review committee. The idea being that certain names would constitute a sort of child abuse(we can imagine our own examples). The article I saw ,I believe, mentioned there were committees in Ontario and Quebec. Thats all I remember. Now I can’t find any kind of reference to it. Did I read this on an April 1st or in a dream or something?
Well, every band on tour claims to be live. I have my doubts about some of them.
CarnalK, in Norway the local registrar has the right to refuse to register a name if he/she believes it will “cause the child undue suffering”, e.g. a name that will get the kid beaten to a pulp in the schoolyard. The parents have the right to appeal if their name is turned down. There are other countries, such as France, which have official lists of approved names. Parents who want to use a name not on the list have to get it approved on a case-by-case basis.
Incidentally, the name laws in Norway also say that you may not give a child a surname/family name as a given name, nor legally change your own given name to a surname as an adult. They don’t seem to mind when Americans temporarily in Norway name their kids Connor, MacKenzie, etc. however.
When I was in the Navy, I was stationed with a girl whose last name was Mw. She’d compressed her middle and last initials into one name. It didn’t seem to bother the Navy much, although she did run into that bureaucratic no-middle-initial hassle.
That is interesting. The transition from Surname to First Name is a standard source of new First Names in English.
The full path tends to be:[List=1]
[li]Place Name[/li][li]Family Name[/li][li]Boy’s First Name[/li][li]Girl’s First Name[/li][/List=1]
Although not all names go through all stages.
Of flodnak’s examples, I’m not sure about Connor (which I thought was a gaelic given name), but McKenzie has gone through steps 2-4. It’s my Dad’s middle name (named for a Grandmother’s Surname) but these days it is more likely to be given to a baby girl.
I wonder how long a name has to been a First Name for it to no longer be considered a Surname for the Norwegian restriction? McKenzie is a fairly recent example, but what about Gordon, Douglas, Rodney or Bruce? (Are there Norwegian equivalents?)
Any idea how long the Norwegian restriction has been in force? Are there any standard First Names in Norway that were once Surnames? Magnus? Karl?
(Statistics Norway have a nice page where you can see the most popular given names… at least that’s what I think it is… not being able to read bokmål or nynorsk(sp?))
