An Apple by any other name
Naming laws seek to shield children from their parents' eccentricities
New parents need to look no further than the Internet for thousands of options, and some even enlist the help of naming consultants and numerologists to find the perfect moniker.
For every thousand people in the world named Sarah or Michael, there's an Apple, Pilot, Inspektor, or Sage Moonblood. But depending on where you live, your proposed name for your new baby could be illegal.
Though North Americans are free to name their children almost anything-a New Jersey couple named their son Adolf Hitler in 2005-countries in Europe and Asia have enacted more stringent laws to protect children from their parents' eccentric whims.
Germany: Children's vornamen (first names) must be gender-specific, and are approved or rejected by the Standesamt, the office of vital statistics. Appealing a rejected name can be both time consuming and costly, and requires parents to think of a new name each time one is rejected...
Sweden: Sweden's naming law was enacted in 1982, and was originally passed to prevent non-noble families from giving their children noble names. Elisabeth Hallin and Lasse Diding decided to name their son Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, pronounced Albin, in 1991 to protest the country's naming laws. Because they didn't register their son's name until his fifth birthday, Hallin and Diding were hit with a 5,000 kronor fine...
New Zealand: New Zealand's laws leave a bit more room for interpretation, but registrar officials have been known to try to talk parents out of giving their children unusual names. Names cannot be offensive, unreasonably long, have inadequate justification or include or resemble an official title or rank...
