New Zealand Bans Weird Baby Names
July 21st, 2011We’re familiar here in the United States with government telling us what we can and can’t do, even if a majority of the time it seems unjust (like smoking marijuana or getting arrested for drinking fruit juice in your car), but we can at least feel thankful we’re not in New Zealand right now, which has just moved to ban parents from giving their children “weird names”.
According to the new law in this country, a family cannot give their children names that are individual letters, official titles (like Bishop, Duke, Prince), or include punctuation. This comes after a surpisingly large group of people started giving their children odd names, such as Violence, Hedges, Lucifer, and Number 16 Bus Shelter. New Zealand will join the nations of Sweden and the Dominican Republic in having laws regarding what parents can or can’t name their children.
Even though I don’t particularly endorse giving kids names like Violence, or naming them after a bus stop, it is still the parents’ right to name their child what they wish. Maybe the weird names have special significance to the couple, and want their children to be named what they are. Also, if the kids don’t like their name, they can get it changed when they become adults to something more mainstream. Either way, what children can or can’t be named is not the responsibility of the government, it’s the choice of the parents, even if we get kids named 4%!@##2n (pronounced Greg).
NOTE: 4%!@##2n is not a real name, I just made it up.
