Nah, what’s horrifying is that the name Jones still exists in the USA, & people still name their sons Jim.
:dubious:
If I understand you correctly, there is no “right” here not to be ridiculed, no inherent protection from ridicule. Children are going to get ridiculed by their peers no matter what, whether it’s a name or the clothes they’re wearing or what their parents do for a living.
I think what it boils down to is “freedom of expression” as covered in the First Amendment. There are more important things we need to protect our children from, such as abuse and neglect, and that’s where we’d prefer to put our tax dollars. In the grand scheme of things, naming your child Nyquil or Mister is not as important as protecting them from abuse and neglect.
Nitpick: Millard Fillmore was never elected President. He was elected Vice Pres., & served as President after Zachary Taylor died.
Incidentally, Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. He changed it himself rather than continue through life with the initials “H.U.G.”
I wonder what the Europeans would make of Kenesaw Mountain Landis? Not only was he named after a mountain, but he spelled it “wrong”!
Well, naming one’s daughters after abstract nouns has a long history in English-speaking countries. Seems normal to me.
Again: there are no “European laws”. And in the case of Denmark I think they are hardly aiming for “cultural uniformity” when they include names from all over the world. Check the list I linked to; along with *Høgne *and *Jørk *you find names like Abdallah and José (tilde and all). Hardly “uniform”.
There are European laws. The Dutch have naming laws. The Germans have naming laws, the French have naming laws. Probably many other European countries have naming laws. These are European countries are they not? We are discussing European naming laws and how they are different than American naming laws.
They are also imposing culture. I noticed that most of those names were in general European names especially if include the middle east. I did not see to any African or Asian names. Specifically I did not see the names of any of the foreign born people sitting in my immediate office area.
Storm in a teacup.
I don’t think in South Africa there were any rules against what I could have been named, so I tend to be more used to the American position.
But surely regardless of what the child’s name is on the birth certificate, you can call them what you like to their face? If the government mandated name is “John” that doesn’t mean you can’t call them “Moonshine” at the dinner table. There isn’t really a freedom of speech issue here.
Perhaps the European* perspective is that having the right to name your child whatever you want simply isn’t a big civil liberty? A strange analogy: In the US, you would not be allowed to choose “Apple” as the SSN number for your child. In fact, you would not be allowed to choose anything at all, the state gets to decide! Facism! Well, not really, because historically getting to choose your own SSN number, which follows you around for life, isn’t very important to people. So perhaps the act of getting to call your kid whatever you like isn’t very important in Europe* in much the same way? If you look at it in this way, it’s not such a crazy oppressive thing after all.
I’m not saying this is how it actually is, I’m just pointing out a way to look at the situation from a point of view where the naming of your kid just isn’t thought of as an self evident right.
*I know, I know. It’s not monolithic. It’s just easier to type it that way 
Aaaiieee! I wrote “social security number number”.
kills himself
Sorry I thought you meant “European” in the same sense as it was used by the OP.
I think you must have missed the part when it was explained that you can request they accept a “foreign” name, provided it exists somewhere else or that you are a member of that ethnicity. I have met ethnic Asians in Denmark and they sure were not called *Åsa *or Øjvind.
Please also remember that if you were born abroad they are not going to make you change your name if you later become a Danish citizen. It doesn’t work that way.
I understand all of that. However, they have come up with a list of correct names for kids that are European names. Sure there may be some procedural ways if you want to jump thorough the hoops you can get a name that matches your skin color if you want. But you do have to jump through those hoops and people who choose traditional names don’t have to jump through those hoops.
So do you not think there is any point at which a parent’s choice of name might be reasonably circumvented? Suppose a parent decided to name their child “Useless Fucking Wankstain Smith” Should that be permitted to happen?
You make some fair points — but again I ask, why are these Danish kids so miserable?
I’ll know why now. They want to be named “Moon Unit”, and you won’t let them.
Sure, but some names are more ridicule-able than others. My name, Elizabeth, rhymes with “Lizard Breath.” (What’s worse is that my last name rhymes with “Smeller.”)
But compare my name with that of one of my husband’s former students: Mr. Benjamin Nanna.
My name is good ammunition for the really determined bully, but it’s not likely that anyone meeting me would notice that my name rhymes with “lizard breath smeller.” But anyone and everyone will notice that Ben Nanna’s name is homonymous with a certain yellow fruit.
Thanks for the correction.
That’s precisely what happeed in the case of my close relative mentionned above who wanted to call his daughter the french equivalent of “apple”. Everybody call her this way.
I just wanted to note that this may vary by location. I’ve lived in cities where the names of a majority of students would qualify as weird. Other cities, you hardly ever saw a Moon Unit type of name, and even then they were more simply unusual and not weird, like Willow. Right now, taking attendance the first day of the year is dicey. Just how do you find out if little Debris is present without risking offense? Poor Brandy hated that first day when he had to argue with teachers that he actually was Brandy, and the snickers and derision it engendered followed him the rest of the year.
Why do some parents feel a need to name their children something unusual? As mentioned earlier, there’s a group that believes they are helping their child by providing a unique name in order to foster or outright provide a strong personality. There are other reasons as well, I’ve noticed. Some parents want to name their child something that reflects who they, the parents, are. Yuppies might name their child Brice or Parker because it belongs to a group with which they identify and want to belong to. One way to cement your place in that group is with what could be thought of as an advertisement for who and what you are in the form of your child’s name.
Certainly there are parents who disregard what they personally can gain and name their child something that conveys a certain status in order to help their child better attain that status and therefore have what they perceive as a good life. They might also choose Brice or Parker.
There are also parents who come up with names they simply think are pretty or cool sounding. They fiddle with parts of names until they come up with something that is pleasing to their ear. Lemeela, Jaquianetta, or Tarken.
Others put together names to honor other people in their lives or people whom they admire. Teachers can always tell whose moms were fans of which soap opera based upon the popularity of certain unlikely names. Koberay’s dad is a big fan of the basketball player and loves Ray Charles.
From what I’ve noticed you’re pretty much as likely to have your child like their interesting name, as not. Brandy hated his name and resented his mother putting her desires above his reasonable need to fit in with his peers. Debris liked her name, raised as she was to have the same values and preferences as her parents on many things.
I have to say, after observing in our schools for many years, it seems wise to seriously consider how others will view the name you provide your child. You can always come up with a jazzy nickname if you think your given name is too staid, and people are teased much less often for having more common names. You can’t always keep the fact your parents named you Orangello in the dark, and why put your child at risk for teasing? You don’t always have to excercise all your rights to the fullest, especially when doing so might make someone, your child, unhappy.
Another data point: In Norway, the main points of the name law are:
[ul][li]Everbody must have at least a first name and a last name[/li][li]You can’t have a first name which is in use in Norway as a last name, unless it’s also in use (somewhere, anywhere) as a first name[/li][li]A name won’t be accepted if it can be a significant problem for the person having the name, or if there are other strong reasons for not accepting it[/li][li]Surnames which fewer than 200 people have are protected (if it’s not in your family, you can only take it if everybody who have it agree)[/ul]Another related point: In case of a name change for children who are older than 12, the child must agree to the name change. What’s the comparative situation in US? Can parents/guardians change a child’s legal name if the child objects?[/li]
This is a gigantic strawman. The presence of laws which may or may not seem silly in one area says nothing about how seriously society and law enforcement takes other, completely unrelated crimes. I might – with as little justification – claim that since USA has a law about not quartering soldiers in private homes (in the constitution, no less), US puts less emphasis on punishing murder or rape than countries which don’t have that specific law.
Yes, I’d say that’s a part of it. An even more important part of the picture is:
And thirdly, there is <insanely broad brush, coupled with guesstimate based on anecdotes> more of a tendency in Europe (at least my part of it) to emphasise children’s rights and freedoms at the cost of parents’ control over their children, compared to US. </broad brush guess> One example: My children have their own library cards. Since they are under 14, they needed my or my husbands signature to get them. But now that they have them, they can check out anything the library has available. I’ve learnt (from SDMB ) that, at least in some places in US, there are special library cards for children, to ensure that they don’t borrow “the wrong kind” of books. That concept gave me one of those “WTF? Don’t they care about freedom?” moments some of you Americans seem to go through in this thread.
Not only do most American libraries work this way, I’m certain that most American parents like it this way, indeed, EXPECT their librarians to keep certain materials from their children.
Now that I think about it, my last post sounded a bit more paranoid than I meant it to. It’s true that most American libraries have different cards for children versus adults…it’s true that most American parents would get bent out of shape if certain materials were made available to their children…and it’s true that there’s often a brouhaha in the news about parents demanding that this or that book be removed from a library or school. But I can’t say if it’s universally true that children’s library cards prevent children from getting certain materials. I know that they limit how much stuff a child can take out of the library, but I don’t know if they limit the kind of stuff (e.g. prevent them from checking out a particular “adult” book title)…
And Indians today would be astonished to meet someone named Jawaharlal who was less than 70 years old. Naming fashions change pretty fast there, too.
On the overall topic, I think there are some key factors that weigh against restraining naming by parents, no matter the cultural or social context or the traditional relationship between a government and its people:
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I don’t know of any factual finding that there is a societal problem related to parents giving their children humiliating names.
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There is no way of forcing people to actually use a name that is registered officially. Therefore, even if there was a demonstrated problem under No. 1, restricting naming does not solve that problem. Preventing a parent from registering the name “Shithead” does not prevent the parents and relatives from calling a child “Shithead” and telling everyone his or her name is “Shithead.”
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Should a person, upon reaching the age of reason, decide that his or her name is inappropriate, he or she can change it, either unofficially or officially or both. (There is no way to force a person to use his or her official name in social circumstances.)
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Almost of the real-life examples (as opposed to hypothetical examples or urban myths) offered amount to nothing more than a disagreement on the basis of personal taste.
So, given that there is no demonstrated problem and the restriction of rights does nothing to solve that non-existent problem, I should think that people should be hesitant to impose their will on their neighbours.
My take is that there’s nothing wrong with “defensive” laws (“The government may stop you from giving your child a truely horrible or obscene name–but it’s up to the gov. to prove that it is horrible”), but an “offensive” law (“Here’s the list of names that the People’s Glorious Commission For Appropriate Names has approved–should you wish to name your child something not on the approved list you must plead with the People’s Glorious Commission For Appropriate Names for an exemption. To start, fill out forms in triplicate, get 23 people to write out one paragraph statements which will vouch for the reasonableness of the name and enclose a $50.00 processing fee.”) is problematic. 
In one case, the government has a tool to help prevent really bad names being inflicted on children. In the other, the state is assuming guilt and the idea of a state-approved list of acceptible names is creepy, IMO.
It’s precisely the same thing as saying “The government can prosecute you if you write something treasonous, or libelous” and “Here’s a list of topics the government will let you write about.”
Fenris