If you want to name your baby girl Harriet, don't live in Iceland.
The country recently denied 10-year-old Harriet Cardew's passport renewal request because her name doesn't comply with Icelandic baby naming laws. Her name doesn't appear on the approved list of 1,853 female and 1,712 boy names, The Guardian reports.
Icelandic laws state that unless both parents are foreign, they must submit their name choice to the National Registry for approval within six months of birth. The name must fulfill requirements that include "Icelandic grammatical endings," "linguistic structure of Iceland" and "Icelandic orthography."
Lilja and Belinda, two of the couple's four children, have their names on their passports because they were born in France. However, Harriet and her brother Duncan, 12, were born in Iceland, but did not have their names approved by the committee.
Duncan (left) and Harriet Cardew (right), photos obtained with the help of The Guardian
They live in Reykjavik, Iceland, and up until this point, have been going by "Girl" and "Boy" on their passports. But upon getting Harriet's passport request, the government went a step further and denied her an updated passport completely, which could put her family's upcoming trip to France on hold.
So Tristan and his wife, Kristin, appealed. "They have deprived our daughter of freedom of movement," Kristin told visir.is.
Baby name "bans" might sound crazy in a country where they're unheard of, but governments all over the world set naming guidelines. Baby-naming site, Nameberry, reports that countries like Germany and Italy have their own rules -- in Germany, surnames as first names like "Anderson" aren't allowed; In Italy, names that could embarrass a child are questioned. "In fact, some of these are not long-standing strictures, but relatively recent ones," wrote Nameberry’s co-founder and naming expert Linda Rosenkrantz.
The Cardews could bypass the name block by changing Harriet's middle name to an Icelandic one, but the family thinks it's too late. Instead, they applied for an emergency passport from the British Embassy where dad Tristan is from.
He finds the name approval process absurd. "The whole situation is really rather silly," he said.
CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story implied that Italy and Germany have the same baby-naming guidelines.
AROUND THE WORLD:
New Zealand: 'Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii'
In 2008, a nine-year-old girl
whose parents gave her this "name" was put into court guardianship in
New Zealand so that it could be changed. According to the Guardian,
the judge also banned names including: Stallion, Yeah Detroit, Fish
and Chips, Twisty Poi, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit were disallowed by
registration officials.
Germany: 'Matti'
According to CNN,
in Germany, rejected baby names depend on gender -- if you can't tell
the gender of the child by the first name (like Matti, apparently), it's
a no go.
Denmark: 'Anus, Pluto And Monkey'
In Denmark, parents must choose from a government-approved list of
7,000 names. If they want to go "off-list", they have to get permission
from a local church. About 1,100 names are reviewed every year, and 15
percent to 20 percent are rejected, mostly for odd spellings.
Sweden: 'Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb- 111163' (Pronounced Albin)
No, not a typo. In 1991
parents actually tried this one, but were rejected because of the
naming law that was originally created in 1982 to prevent non-noble
families from giving their children noble names. The couple then tried
the name "A" (still pronounced Albin), but were again rejected.
China: '@'
That's right, parents who tried
to use the "at" symbol as a name were rejected. Not because of any
Twitter connotation, but because under Chinese naming regulations, characters that cannot be represented on the computer are outlawed.
Dominican Republic: 'Dear Pineapple'
In 2007, a judge in the
Dominican Republic submitted a proposal to ban names that are either
confusing or gave no indication of gender, the Globe and Mail reported.
Among unique names used
to prove his point: Mazda Altagracia, Toshiba Fidelina, Querida Pina
(Dear Pineapple), Tonton Ruiz (Dummy Ruiz) and Winston Churchill de la
Cruz.
SOURCE: huffingtonpost.com/
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a comment:
Dave Dehny · Top Commenter · California State University, Northridge
We finally get a story about Iceland and it's THIS?!
How many of you tools yammering on about this girls name and ' personal freedom ' are aware that during the global economic meltdown, Iceland prosecuted bankers and politicians who were complicit in the disaster? They refused austerity, nationalized the banks, forgave debts for homeowners and businesses swept up by the corruption and bounced back economically in less than a year. It should have been the model for the entire globe, instead it was swept under the rug to hide the reality from millions of American SUCKERS.
Please proceed.
