a) You'll use that name (or have it on official documents) for a long time. Maybe there's a correlation between countries that have less rules for naming and co

a) You'll use that name (or have it on official documents) for a long time. Maybe there's a correlation between countries that have less rules for naming and countries that make it easy to change ones name? Of course you can be 'Mustard Smith' and just introduce yourself as John and lead a mostly normal life. But that name was never a name to begin with. Names are not random nouns. You write mustard, not Mustard. John's a name, "Lightning" is - in my humble opinion - not. On various levels. b) We have to disagree then. Of course there are different levels of ~abuse~ here. Some names are just silly (incidently I'd say the German example of allowing "Legolas" is on that list), but abusing your power to name a child to make a pun is offensive in my world. Choosing offensive names should be criminal. Back to children: They will exploit differences. The more weird, crazy or .. stupid your name is, the easier it is to laugh about you. Will they make fun of ~everyone~? Sure. But crappy names make very easy targets.