Wednesday, July 20, 2011

In Case You Missed It. . .

What is it with the Kiwis and kids’ names?  I have previously discussed this at:

The Sydney Morning Herald on 20 July 2011 had another article about the issue:

A devil of a name put on NZ banned list
Tamara McLean, Auckland

Naming your new bundle of joy Lucifer has been effectively banned by New Zealand's names registrar after three parents had the odd request knocked back.

The country's Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages has been cracking down on mothers and fathers getting too creative with their children's names, ruling out punctuation marks such as . (Full Stop), * (Asterisk) and / (presumably ''Slash'').

The list of 102 names rejected in the past two years includes Baron, Bishop, Duke, General, Judge, Justice, King, Knight and Mr, all deemed too similar to titles.

Messiah was also turned down, as was 89, and the single letters, C, D, I and T, although Q and J were accepted after being queried.

It's a new hard line for the agency that made headlines in 2008 when it was revealed to have approved a series of strange monikers, among them Benson and Hedges, twins named after the cigarette brand, and Violence and Number 16 Bus Shelter, both for boys.

One girl was so traumatised by her name, Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii, that she had it legally changed at age nine.

In accepting her name change in 2008, Family Court Judge Rob Murfitt said odd names had the ability to scar children as they grew up.

''It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap,'' he said.

At the time, the authority tried to defend its lax approach by pointing out it had rejected names including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Sex Fruit, Stallion and Twisty Poi, a staple food in Polynesian cuisine.

Somehow Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii just ''slipped through''.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.