Some US Baby Names Are Banned in New Zealand

by Robert Wilkinson

It seems that down under in NeZ, they take naming babies seriously.

We find this peculiar combination of the Brain Police limiting free speech and compassionate common sense courtesy of Today.com in an article by Rebecca Dube called “18 U.S. baby names are banned in New Zealand.” In it we read that the NeZ government has a list of 77 banned baby names, including Christ and Lucifer.

By all mean, go check out the list of banned names that are okay here in the US, which includes King, Princess, Justice, Justus, Major, Queen, Rogue, Christ, and Lucifer. Yes, these are all names that parents gave their kids in the US that the NeZ government deems unfit for wearing in public.

While I understand the need for parents to feel that their kids are special, I also remember the ridicule that kids with strange names suffered when I was much younger. Lucifer? Really? Who would name their kid Lucifer? I would suspect that would make one’s child as popular as naming them Beelzebub or Adolph Hitler.

From the story:

Other names on the New Zealand list mercifully don’t show up on the U.S. rolls: Anal, we are pleased to report, is not a name. (Though parents experimenting with “unique” spellings of the upward-trending girl’s name Annalise have come up with some that are perliously close to Analease – beware.) Mafia No Fear and 4Real also have not been used here... yet.

New Zealanders may accept, even welcome their government protecting its littlest citizens from bad names. Other countries have similar controls, like Sweden, where the government has rejected such monikers as Superman and Metallica.

Not so in America, where we consider it literally a birthright to name kids whatever we darn well please. (Looking at you, parents of Moxie CrimeFighter, Kal-El and Pilot Inspektor.)

Anyway, just another quirky piece of news in a very irrational time. Enjoy checking out the list over at the site. Glad to know that no one in Sweden is named Superman or Metallica. One small step for humankind….

© Copyright 2013 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[mike]

Well, I think they should do a second-level check to ensure the first name fits with the surname! The infamous Texan, Ima Hogg, for example, or Ima June Bugg.

Many years ago, I worked at a general hospital of a major city and a patient named her baby from a word she saw on the delivery chart...sounded like Ce Phyllis...the word was syphilis!

[D]

Very funny stuff--sort of. Analease? Shivers....

Years ago a friend who had just come back to the US from living in the West Indies for a decade told me that she had a neighbor-friend who had named her child something like or inspired by Chlamydia ... or however it's spelled. (Of course, the spelling was creative, so it doesn't matter that I can't spell it anyway : )

Thanks for the laugh, Robert. Long time, no see!

[Nic]

Good fun! As Shakespeare wrote: "What's in a name?" That said, parents do have a responsibility when they name their children. Maybe there should be a law that would allow anyone to change their name to a different one when they have their eighteen birthday.
It also remind me of some funny names I came across in a Southamerican country. Nixon, and Kennedy where used as names, ther reason given was that they were names that appeared a lot in TV (go figure, haha) ANother one was "Telurica" for a girl born in the subway during and earthquake. Human creativity, no doubt, but creativity also needs to be geared to the highest possibility.
Cheers,
Nic

[Evan]

The Grand Irrationality at work all around.

[Suzanne]

Here in Australia I once heard a mother call her child 'Buddha'. The funny thing was she was telling the kid off for being naughty. Another time I heard a mother call her little boy 'Messiah'. What names to live up to!