Naming a baby is a wonderful moment in a new parent’s life, but one thing that they might not immediately think about is the legality of the baby’s name.
Here’s how you can name your baby without having a run in with the law.
In the UK, names that may carry a risk of harm to a child are likely to be rejected by the Registering Officer.
This includes names that contain obscenities, numerals, misleading titles or names that are impossible to pronounce.
For example in 2016, a mum in Wales was banned from calling her daughter Cyanide.
This is because her child would share her name with a lethal poison.
Britain doesn’t have any hard and fast laws about banned names, unlike Iceland who only accepts names chosen from a pre-agreed government list.
In almost all cases, so long as the name isn’t fraudulent, you are free to call your baby whatever you want.
The very few forbidden names in the UK include Martian, Monkey and Akuma, meaning devil, according to MomJunction.
Different countries have different rules when it comes to what you can name your baby.
Some have rules banning special characters, like @, from baby names, or only accept names in the national language.
In 2018, a French couple were banned from calling their baby daughter Liam after French authorities stepped in saying it “would be likely to create a risk of gender confusion” and “therefore contrary to the interest of the child and could harm her in social relations”.
Portugal has a strict 83-page list of approved and unapproved names.
Several British names, including some belonging to the royal family, are banned.
These names include Catherine, George, Charlotte and William.
Denmark has a specific register.
There are around 7,000 approved baby names on the list, and you have to seek permission if you want to choose a different moniker.
More than 1,000 names are reviewed every year, and almost a fifth are rejected – usually because of their unusual spellings.
Name suggestions like Jakobp and Ashleiy have been banned in the past.
Germany’s naming laws are among the strictest in the world, with names needing approval from local authorities before they can be chosen.
Names should indicate the baby’s gender, with gender-neutral names needing a second name added on to make it clear if the baby is a boy or a girl.
The name parents choose should also not be silly, and not be chosen based on a product or object.
Banned names in Germany include Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden.
Laws around baby names depend on the state you’re in, with some, like Kentucky, having no rules at all.
Other places, like California, ban names which don’t use the English alphabet, meaning 1000 is banned as a name but One Thousand isn’t.
The Canadian singer Grimes and tech billionaire Elon Musk faced difficulty in California, when they tried to name their baby X Æ A-12 Musk.
The few names banned in America tend to be titles, such as Duke, King or Queen.
Australia has a handful of rules when it comes to names, including laws banning names which are obscene or unpleasant.
Names which are very long are also not allowed, as are names which are slang terms for genitalia.
Australia has previously banned names such as Ikea, Thong and even “Australia”, as a name.
In 2014, Saudi Arabia‘s Interior Ministry introduced a list of 51 banned names which aren’t in line with the country’s social traditions.
Most of the names on the banned list had religious connotations, but foreign-sounding options were also prohibited.
Names such as Linda and Maya are on the banned list.
