If I have a child, am I obligated by law to name him or her? Is there a limit of characters or names allowed? Can I put a number in his or her name, such as Li8sa?
Here is a good wikipedia article on the subject.. There aren’t many laws at all regarding acceptable names in the U.S. versus other countries. However, names are generally governed by state laws rather than federal ones so it is going to depend on the state. The cited article says that one man was denied a court request to change his name to numbers but it was OK as long as he spelled it out as Mr. Ten Sixty-Nine. Your question is slightly different in that the court doesn’t get involved for new baby names so it might pass but again, it depends on state law.
I don’t know about the symbol but I would imagine that it would be denied simply for clerical and computer database reasons. I don’t know if the singer Prince ever got his name changed legally to a symbol.
An acquaintance of mine used to work in hiring for FedEx, where a million names crossed her desk. One that really made it hard for her to keep a straight face was on a grown woman named BabyGirl. BabyGirl Smith, for instance. She said she really wanted to ask her: “Did your parents think, when they saw the name band on your wrist, that the hospital had already named you?”
We don’t use John Doe in my work (unidentified male from x location #1, unidentified male #2) but I can imagine you’d get called by some generic name if your mom didn’t name you.
Also, you’d end up on a million Internet lists where your mom and dad would be vilified eternally.
No surprise, the All-Knowing Master speaks.