Baby Name Rules...

[bunnsidhe.livejournal.com]

I mentioned in my intro post that I currently live in Scandinavia. In Denmark there is an acceptable list of baby names. This means you are not allowed to name your child a name not on the list without approval (I believe this goes for odd spellings, too). The list has been relaxed somewhat because of immigration of non-Scandinavians into Denmark--but your best bet is to prove the name is significant to your religion or culture. So no Moon Units. Actually, my mother-in-law told me her parents were not allowed to name her sister Mia back around 1960.

Do you think this is a good idea so kids don't end up with cruel names?

Comments

[bunnsidhe.livejournal.com]

From an article:

A Danish law, that takes effect on April 1, expands approved lists to include names from the United States, Europe and other countries, and allows parents to apply for unlisted names.

The Swedish parliament has commissioned the government to overhaul its Personal Names Act of 1982.

Spain has several name lists, corresponding to regional languages like Catalan and Basque. Registry offices in Germany have an "International Handbook of Forenames," updated in 2002. Argentina has broadened its lists to accept indigenous names.

Even countries without explicit laws have implicitly acceptable names. U.S. census data shows 757 names cover 75 percent of the nation's 295 million people.

Regulated or not, baby names can hurt, experts say.

"What it does is handicap a kid who has to deal with it," said Albert Mehrabian, a University of California professor emeritus of psychology and author of "Baby Name Report Card: Beneficial and Harmful Baby Names."

Some parents are capable of labours of lunacy. Portugal's reject list includes Ovnis. OVNI is Portuguese for UFO.

Danish authorities nixed Monkey and Lucifer. Mehrabian knows of an American named Latrina.