You Can't Name the Baby That!
"Spinach may be good for you, but not as a name for your child, according to one court in Australia," writes columnist John G. Browning.
November 05, 2024 at 10:00 AM
6 minute read
CommentaryBy John G. Browning
Have you ever heard about the latest in bad, odd, or least questionable baby names chosen by a given celebrity, and thought, "That poor kid—there should be a law against that"? I'm thinking about some of the more egregious examples, like Gwyneth Paltrow naming her child Apple, Superman-obsessed Nicolas Cage saddling his son with the name Kal-El, and Michael Jackson naming one of his kids Blanket. Well, if you think the legal system should stop such, ahem, creative naming practices, guess what? In some places, it already does.
Most U.S. states prohibit the use of symbols like "@" as names on the grounds that they can be confusing and don't mesh well with computerized databases. Numbers aren't permitted either, for the same reasons. One North Dakota man, Herbert Dengler, found that out when a court there rejected his petition to be known as "1069." So he moved to Minnesota, and a court there ruled against him as well (although the judge did say he could be known by its alphabetic spelling, One Zero Six Nine). Even Elon Musk had to change his child's number and symbol-based name because of a California law stipulating that only letters of the alphabet may be included in legal names.
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