Law against parents giving children ridiculous names?
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 3:15 am
Should there be a law against parents giving their children ridiculous names? (I wanted to type this whole sentence in the thread subject, but it was too long to fit.)
In the wake of the story about the couple who named their newborn baby daughter 'Hashtag' in honour of Twitter, I got pondering.
I don't think I would support a general law against it because there is a chance that it could be taken too far. Let me be clear, I have great sympathy for children who are given truly ridiculous names such as 'Hashtag'. They will suffer a lot of bullying and humiliation as they grow older and their parents are either too stupid to see it or too selfish to care.
But a general law might go too far and could be used to prohibit people from giving children nice, but different/non-mainstream names. There are nature names that I like - River, Rain, Summer, Willow, etc - even Ocean. While these are certainly unusual and different, I don't think names like that fall into the 'insanely ridiculous' category.
So the problem with such a law is that it could be taken too far and prevent people from giving their children perfectly nice, but non-mainstream, names. And that would be a real shame.
I also do believe that people should be free to choose names for their children. So on reflection, I wouldn't support a law...but when I see stories like the 'Hashtag' one, it gets me thinking.
In the wake of the story about the couple who named their newborn baby daughter 'Hashtag' in honour of Twitter, I got pondering.
I don't think I would support a general law against it because there is a chance that it could be taken too far. Let me be clear, I have great sympathy for children who are given truly ridiculous names such as 'Hashtag'. They will suffer a lot of bullying and humiliation as they grow older and their parents are either too stupid to see it or too selfish to care.
But a general law might go too far and could be used to prohibit people from giving children nice, but different/non-mainstream names. There are nature names that I like - River, Rain, Summer, Willow, etc - even Ocean. While these are certainly unusual and different, I don't think names like that fall into the 'insanely ridiculous' category.
So the problem with such a law is that it could be taken too far and prevent people from giving their children perfectly nice, but non-mainstream, names. And that would be a real shame.
I also do believe that people should be free to choose names for their children. So on reflection, I wouldn't support a law...but when I see stories like the 'Hashtag' one, it gets me thinking.