Refused names

Tom Hunt at Stuff reports:

Of the 285 names rejected between July 2001 and September last year, “Justice” was by far the most refused baby name.

Sixty people, or 63 if you include Juztice and Justus (2), have tried and failed to name their babies as if they were a High Court judge.

Eleven of these were in the past 18 months.

Also topping the list are other names easily confused with titles, such as 29 Kings, 27 Princesses, 26 Princes, nine Majors, nine Dukes, and eight Bishops.

Twenty-one parents tried and failed to name their bundle of joy Royal.

285 refused names over 11 years is around 25 a year or one a fortnight. Not too bad.

But the law said names could be no more than 100 letters long, none could be offensive to a reasonable person, and each name had to abide by the dictionary definition of a name – that it was a word or a group of words.

I don’t see the 100 letters specified in law. The Act says:

For the purposes of this section, it is undesirable in the public interest for a person to bear a name or combination of names if, and only if,—

• (a)it might cause offence to a reasonable person; or

• (b)it is unreasonably long; or

• (c)without adequate justification, it is, includes, or resembles, an official title or rank.

In terms of (a):

“Sometimes it is pretty simple. ‘Anal’, for example, for most people, is quite offensive.”

Did a parent really try to name their kid “Anal”? Surely not. I’d say that should be a mandatory CYFS notification!

Mr McPherson said he was aware of instances where people tried to register names with more than 100 letters, but then reduced them to fit in with legislation, meaning there were some New Zealanders with 99-letter names.

Poor bastards.