I have read occasionally about laws in various European states, including Denmark, Germany, and France, that restrict parents’ choice in naming their children. I have always wondered about the reasoning behind these laws.
Of course, having an American perspective myself, I would be outraged at the attempt not only to restrict my freedom of expression in choosing a name for my child and freedom to exercise my duties as a parent as I see fit, but also at the implied disrespect for my judgement on behalf of my fellow citizens, or, at the very least what seems to be an assumption of lack of ability to carry out this function without guidance or oversight.
I know that in France you used to be able to only name a child after “a saint or a person from antiquity” (i.e., Matthew, Mark, or Nebuchadnezzar). I don’t think that’s the case now.
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As an American, I would WELCOME some sort of restriction on what people can name their kids. Have you seen what’s out there lately?
Have a look at the Social Security web site for most popular names of 2001. Tons of people giving their children “unique” names. In fact 266 people named their daughters “Unique” last year.
You want to name something “Jayde”, get a cat. For the rest of her life, any girl named Jayde is going to have to say, “Jayde, with a Y.” And the other person will say “Where?”
People try to be clever when naming kids. No, don’t be clever. There are 3 different spellings of Jasmine/Jasmin/Jasmyn on the above list. A name is an identifier. A name which sews confusion should not be allowed.
Suppose you want to name your child “Shithead”. Should that be allowed? Is your desire to choose a “funny” name for your child more important than the child’s well-being?
There is no legal regulation on it in Germany, but common law and jurisdiction requires the name to be non-humiliating, non-ridiculous (I don’t know the formulation by the court ) and they have to make the child’s sex clear upon hearing the name.
Normally, after a child’s birth, you have to report it to the authorities so they can issue a birth certificate. If you choose a very starnge name, they’ll try to dissuade you from it; if this fails, and you insist on your choice, they actually can refuse to accept the name. There are again and again parents filing lawsuits against authorities that did so, and the newspapers love reporting about it and whether the court allowed the name or not. “Pumuckl” (the name of a popular children’s book protagonist) once was approved of by one court, “Coca-Cola”, “Möwe” (seagull!) and “Schröder” (a comon family name) were rejected.
You can agree or disagree with this procedure, but it has its advantages.
Has anyone tried to name their kids “Shithead” other than maybe a few people who are clearly nutso?
Will passing a name law stop a disturbed parent from addressing a child as “Shithead”?
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Laws should be passed only to solve important problems that do exist (outside perhaps a small number of isolated cases).
Even then, a law should be passed only when it actually does something to solve the problem, especially in the case of limits on freedom of expression.
Even then, the law should be limited to actually address only the problem itself. Saying you can’t name your kid “Shithead” is not the same thing as saying you can choose names only from this list.
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There are supposedly laws meant to deal with abusive parents. If a parent is calling a kid “shithead” in an abusive manner or actually tries to put “Shithead” on a school admissions form, then that’s when the government should intervene, not with a blanket law that infringes on freedom of expression.
** KXL**: Pretty much everything you said in your hijack is your opinion, and I pretty much disagree with you on all counts. (I don’t necessarily think all “clever” names are appealling to me, but if people want to have them, I don’t begruge them it.) So you think your opinion about names should restrict my behaviour?
Okay, so “Unique” seems a bit silly to me. I’m sure it’s just fine for at least some, if not all, the people who have it. Those who don’t like the names their parents gave them are free to change them. Looking at my address book, I see that half the men I know are named Brian or Jeffrey. Frankly, I think more of them would benefit from silly names.
My initial, gut reaction to this is “yeah, we should eliminate some of those funky names–there ought to be a law…” But on second thought, do we really need to tie up the courts any more than they already are with people suing for the right to name their child whatever it is they want to name their child?
And just for the record, if it hadn’t been for the epidural I’d have named my son “Fourteen-inch-head”.
acsenray, this is not the forum for debates. My (exaggerated) example was supposed to give you an idea of why those “naming” laws exist, which is the question in the OP.
I’m not sure of the exact legal situation in Switzerland (my country of origin), but even if a law exists saying a name must be chosen from a list, in practice any name that will not expose the child to mockery will be allowed.
I believe there are laws that would prevent the name Smeghead from appearing on a birth certificate. This particular misuse of the law made the news in 1998.
Do you remember that Monty Python episode where the guy meets a couple at a cocktail party. I forget the names, but it was something like “Hi, my name is Stupid Git, and this is my wife …”
In France, the law used to be that only usual names (saint’s names would be accepted, even when extremely uncommon, for instance, but I don’t know what were the references for say, arabic or chinese names) or names of famous historical figures were allowed. So, the official in charge of the birth registers could refuse the name you intended to give to your child (some officials could be anal, other less so).
For instance, my brother wanted to name his daughter “Pomme” (apple) , but the official refused, stating that this name was weird and could be used in a derogatory way (which is remotely true in french). So, my brother tried “Alise” instead. The official once again refused, stating that Elise was the correct spelling (Knowing my brother, I’m pretty certain he became mad when the guy refused “Pomme”, and I strongly suspect that’s why the official subsenquently refused “Alise” too)…Everybody now call the girl “Pomme”, but her official name is indeed “Elise”.
When the name you intended to give was refused, you could bring the issue to a judge, who would decide. But I don’t know what was exactly the law, so I don’t know if the judges would decide on the basis of the name appearing on some sort of list or would only refuse ridiculous or weird names.
Anyway, the law has been changed since (perhaps 7-8 years ago), and now, the reverse is true. You can pick whatever name you want, and the official can bring the matter to the court if he thinks the name you choose could be harmful for the child. And only the judge can refuse it.
I read an article some time ago, and it seems that there actually are people who insist on giving inappropriate names to their childs. Amongst the names most commonly refused by judges :
-Family name of some celebrity
-Name of an item a parent is fond of (in particular car brands)
-Names which makes a pun when added to the family name
Yeah, well, that’s Germans for you. The very nice German couple that recently stayed with my parents for a month was very surprised to hear that you didn’t have to register in the States when you moved.
Hey, if you don’t care if you don’t get your mail, or can’t vote, then it’s your problem. Although I’ve been told by California cops that you have ten days to inform the Department of Motor Vehicles that you’ve moved. Personally, it’s on my list of things to do, somewhere after organizing my socks.
Pretty close! quoting from a site with information on life in Geneva (www.cagi.ch)
I know for a fact that when parents try to give their kid an unusual name, sometimes it is enough to also give the kid a ‘normal’ name as a middle name. That way the kid can (at least in theory) choose the ‘proper’ name later on.
Well, what I wanted to say was that there is no law that explicitly says what criteria a name has to fulfil. However, there are lots of court verdicts regarding name quarrels, and those are usually accepted even though it’s not legislation.
In denmark the law says you must give your child one or more names and that they must not be a “disadvantage” to the kid.
Further more there exists a list of officially approved names, but I think that it’s not easy but possible to get another name approved (as long as it conforms to the before mentioned rule).
I think that names are given to children far too early. Instead, they should be given catchy nick names like “Boy” or “Girl” or, if you’re not sure, “Hey you”. When the child gets the vote, family and friends also vote - on a suitable name for the newly qualified adult. Names would be given that reflect the child’s personality and character.
There is one major downside to this method - the number of people who would be called Fuckwit.
In Norway, the primary function of the name laws is to protect family names, to prevent confusion about who is related to who in case of inheritance disputes and so forth. However, they do include two regulations about given names: first, as a general rule you can’t give a child a surname as a given name (same reason as above); and second, the name cannot be “likely to cause harm” to the child.
In my opinion, the question of whether the regulations are justified or not boils down to whose point of view you’re looking at things from: the child’s, or the parents’. And I will leave it at that.
) and they have to make the child’s sex clear upon hearing the name.