A woman was left “devastated” after her daughter’s passport application was rejected because she was named after a Game of Thrones character.
Lucy, 39, from Swindon in Wiltshire, said the Passport Office initially refused the application for Khaleesi, six.
Officials said they were unable to issue a passport unless Warner Brothers gave permission because it owned the name’s trademark. But the authority has since apologised for the error.
This seems fucking daft. How do you refuse a name? Unless your name is a literal blank then you should be allowed any stupid name you desire.
Here in Germany, they can decide to refuse a name for a child if it’s overly krass or might make the child’s life unduly difficult. While one can argue about whether they like that, at least it only happens once. If you have a name, you can get as many passports with it on there as you want.
some twonk at the passport office invented this rule.
hence the apology. The Uk passport office has no right or duty to enforce trademarks.
Even that doesn’t make sense. Trademark law doesn’t apply to peoples personal names.
Sooo many people didn’t read that article.
In Malaysia same rule apply, but the only gate is from the National Registration Department, where they might reject name including joke name and stupidly long name, the other department have no such power.
At least no child have to live with the name Biggus Dickus or Incontinetia Buttocks for 18 years.
I met a guy who had no first name. He had to be entered into systems as “NFN.”
There’s nothing wrong with not having a name that’s literally blank.
No first name and no name are two different concepts.
Morally, sure, there’s nothing wrong with having no name. Socially and practically there absolutely is.
Depends on the society and what it considers practical.
One of my friends from church growing up was from Nigeria, and apparently there’s a culture within Nigeria that doesn’t believe in naming their kids until they come of age. He had no first or middle name, just his family name. He went by Cory, which is apparently what his parents planned on naming him once he was (iirc) 13, but it wasn’t “officially” his name. But apparently it caused all sorts of problems for them when they immigrated, and the US makes it much more complicated than they expected, because they were used to more informal/traditional/less legalistic systems around it.
Caveat, I was like 9, so I may be misremembering some detail. I’m also only, like, 80% it was Nigeria. I know it was Africa, but I’m not entirely positive it was Nigeria, but I think it was.
The Passport Office has admitted that it was a mistake and have sorted this out. The interesting question is how this happened. I’ve known a few people who work their and they aren’t beyond dicking about - back in the day they might mess with famous people by sticking their photograph on upside down. I could see them doing something like this is they thought someone had a stupid name.
It is a stupid name. Why lumber the kid with an unnecessarily daft name? It’s not even easy to spell.
I’ve got a somewhat odd name (at least I’m not named after a character from a book), and I do wish my parents would just have gone with Tom or something.
It’s also not actually a name in the source material. It’s like watching a story about 18th century France and naming your daughter “Dauphine”, or about 1st century BC Rome and naming your son “Consul”.
smith, cobbler, tanner. look new names exist somehow, naming people after characters in stories is as old as names.
A Danish couple went court to be allowed to name their child Christophpher. That’s not a typo.
People are stupid.
What’s their surname? Hfuhruhurr?
Even a blank name can work for some; https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ is a fun read if you’ve never encountered it before.
I’ve only quickly read that. Kinda funny with reference to the Klingon Empire.
However this doesn’t say anything about blank names. The closest it comes is point six.
But I believe that is talking about an upper limit rather than a lower limit.
If your first and last name (or any combination of however many names you have) is literally blank then how do you expect to function in society? Let alone modern society.
You’ll end up with an alias (which is essentially nickname) that someone assigns you that will become your de facto name… and now you have a name .
Point 40: “People have names”.
Every country has guidelines and rules on names.
I’m pretty sure the UK doesn’t.
We probably should but I don’t think we actually do which is why it’s kind of daft that this was refused.
The UK does indeed have certain limitations on what a name can be.
Names that contain obscenities, numerals, misleading titles, or are impossible to pronounce are likely to be rejected by the Registering Officer, when registering a child.
There are no restrictions on adults assuming any new name, unless the purpose of the name change is fraudulent.