4 ms·
Names having to be approved by the government is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
by xxpor 9y ago
Names having to be approved by the government is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- DanBC 9y agoHere's a recent English case, where a mother wanted to call her two children Preacher and Cyanide. (This is the appeal) http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2016/374.html http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/... Here, the mother was already involved in care proceedings, and the local authority child protection social workers weren't able to just force her to pick different names, but had to go to court in front of an independent judge. It's a pretty detailed document and it shows, I think, how uncomfortable English judges are with exercising this power.
- chaosite 9y agoSurnames are basically a government invention.
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoFor purposes of taxation I believe.
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoTheres a few reasons for it. In France's case, it's for centralization and the enforcement of Parisian norms over, say, the local culture of Brittany. There's a less malign version in Iceland, which basically just makes sure that it's possible to use someone's name grammatically in Icelandic.