LONDON — Congratulations are in order for Blær Bjarkardóttir, the 15-year-old Icelandic girl who this week won the legal right to keep her given name in defiance of the despotic-sounding Icelandic Naming Committee.
Blær — its means “light breeze” in Icelandic — had sued authorities who refused to register her name because it was not on an approved list of 1,853 names that parents are allowed to give their female children.
The Reykjavík District Court found in her favor on Thursday, although it turned down her appeal for the equivalent of $4,000 in damages.
“I am very happy,” she said. “Finally, I’ll have the name ‘Blær’ in my passport.”
Iceland is among those states that keep a tight rein on naming conventions, in part to protect children from bearing a lifetime burden as the result of fanciful choices made in the first flush of parenthood.
How many Excels and Hurricanes are there who wish there had been an authoritarian Naming Committee around when they needed it?
In Germany, as in Iceland, unisex names are banned, while a first given name must not negatively affect the well-being of the child.
Danish parents can pick from an approved list of 7,000 male and female names, and any unusual choice is likely to be rejected. That has mercifully spared intended victims from ending up as Pluto and Monkey, according to David K. Israel at the Mental Floss website.
A Swedish couple once attempted to strike a blow for parents’ rights by naming their son Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (pronounced “Albin”). Their appeal to the law was rejected and instead they received a $750 fine for not registering the boy before his fifth birthday.
“What’s in a name?” as Shakespeare’s Juliet asked. “That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Maybe. But would she have felt the same if her parents had called her Moxie CrimeFighter, like the daughter of Penn Jillette, the American magician?
Celebrity children appear to be particularly vulnerable. Bob Geldof, the Irish music star, charity fundraiser and father of four daughters, has a Peaches, a Pixie, a Fifi Trixibelle and a Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence.
Parents in the United States are allowed to name their children pretty much what they like.
However, as Lisa Belkin wrote at the Motherlode parenting blog last year, Child Protective Services were called in when a couple in Easton, Pennsylvania, ordered a birthday cake for their little Adolf Hitler Campbell, brother of JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Himmler Jeannie Campbell.
Annual lists of favorite names indicate most parents remain conservative in their choices. Lisa Belkin wrote that Emma, Isabella and Emily, and Jacob, Michael and Ethan, topped the U.S. list in 2011.
If you’re about to choose a name for your newborn, keep in mind a handy rule of thumb for naming cats: Never pick a name that you would be embarrassed to yell out of the window at midnight.
Let us know what you think: Should the state have a right to veto what a parent names a child? Is the banning of outlandish names an act of mercy? And if you have an unusual given name, is it a burden or a benefit?
