Maybe Try Julian? Couple Banned from Naming Son 'WikiLeaks'

[struggle4progress]

By Andy Eckardt

... The German official at Passau's registry office in the conservative state of Bavaria initially did not know what WikiLeaks meant, according to Hamalaw.

"She thought I was presenting the name of a television show," Hamalaw said. "We were very disappointed after the rejection. Hundreds of people across the globe were allowed to use the name of Barack Obama's dog for their child, but I can't use WikiLeaks?"

Germany does not have a list of approved names that parents can choose from for their children, but courts can rule whether a name risks endangering a child's welfare.

Parents are prevented from naming their kids after towns or brands. In recent years, first names like Stompie, McDonald, Woodstock, Grammophon and Peppermint have been banned ...

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/maybe-try-julian-couple-banned-naming-son-wikileaks-n70596

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I always said that if I had kids, I'd want two boys...

So I could name the first Bjorn, and the second Bjorn Again...

[NuclearDem]

16. I would've thought just adding 2: Electric Boogaloo to the end of a name

would be great.

Francis 2: Electric Boogaloo.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

21. That's my favorite subtitle...

I tack that on to damn near everything that has a part 2.

[whistler162]

63. Change your last name to Wilde and

give the first one a middle name of Toby!

One of my cousins son is name Bjorn after a great-grandparent.

[BainsBane]

3. Parents need to quit screwing with their kids

by giving them wacko names.

[davidpdx]

9. +1

It is very cruel in my opinion. The poor kids with strange names will be bullied.

[yeoman6987]

13. Oh gosh.

I have ran into the conservative sect of DU. Many cultures and ethnicities have unique names. Nobody should be bullied for them and we should accept every name given to a child regardless. I am really shocked by the behavior tonight on this thread.

[BainsBane]

19. Did you read the article?

It certainly doesn't seem like it, since your comments bare no relation to it's content. 1) This is about BAVARIA 2) It's not about an ethnic name. It's about calling a kid "Wikileaks."

What I find shocking is that you feel entitled to insult people based on some free association in your head rather than engage with the actual content of the article.

[Hip_Flask]

22. It's not even about bullying...

It's about being taken seriously as an adult.

Furious Megatron Jones or his equivalent is being intentionally handicapped by the people who are supposed to look out for him.

[Scootaloo]

32. Only because emplpyers don't know the value of staffing a guy named "Furious Jones"

[Hip_Flask]

44. Correct...

... And that's because they'll see his CV, see his name and know that this is someone who won't be taken as seriously by clients so he'll move on to the next.

Moronic names are all negatives for the kid and the positive is a non conforming hipster warm and fuzzy for the parents.

Selfish...

[BainsBane]

46. Or Adolph Hitler

Remember the parents that gave their kid that name? I'm not talking about the original. Some poor child currently has that name because his parents are White Supremacists.

[hrmjustin]

47. I had a friend who's name was Sunshine Love.

When he turned 18 he legally changed it.


Meant to respond upthread to you.

[BainsBane]

50. That definitely sounds like a woman's name

I can see why he changed it.

[Scootaloo]

54. Shall we do like Iceland, and have a list of "Approved" names?

How does one define "moronic," I wonder?

[davidpdx]

35. There is nothing conservative about me

You might want to get to know me before jumping to conclusions. Take a look at the names in the article. It has nothing to do with culture and ethnicity and everything to do with a few idiotic parents. Again if you knew who I was and where I lived you'd probably be surprised.

As for your shock, it seems to have gotten you in a bit of trouble hasn't it?

[BainsBane]

14. Racist?

Give me a break. What race is Wikileaks or Moon Unit?

[randome]

23. Hah! I was thinking of 'Moon Unit' too!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[LumosMaxima]

15. Agreed! nt

[Tikki]

18. Forty some years ago my husband and I named two sons names we knew were typically surnames..

but since our surname was more like a given name we thought it fit.

Fast forward to the 2000's and both their names are now, also, female names and how could
we have known!!!


The Tikkis

[BainsBane]

20. My name was extremely rare back when my parents named me

Now it's relatively common.

[tridim]

4. Was thinking of naming my next dog Wiki.

Maybe. Lots of ideas.

[DreamGypsy]

17. If you did there would be Wiki leaks ...

...all around your neighborhood.

[polichick]

52. Ha! I was thinking people would make jokes...

about a leaky baby if that name was used.

[BainsBane]

56. DUzy!

[sabrina 1]

62. Lol!

That's funny! And true!

[DJ13]

5. Maybe Google would get a pass

[Make7]

6. Bobby Tables

[div class="footer" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; display:inline; font-size:0.8462em;"]http://xkcd.com/327/

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

25. lmao

gotta love DB humour

[LWolf]

7. Peppermint is a plant.

Like Rose, Sage, Lily....

As a public school teacher, I've had students with truly ridiculous names. I wouldn't interfere with the parents' right to name their own kids, though. The worst name ever, I thought, was "Placenta." Right now names of cities are really, really popular in my area. I could list a couple dozen extremely weird names, but those are rare enough that someone would be likely to recognize the actual kid.

If I were going to get authoritarian about child-naming, I'd put my foot down about the bizarre spellings. It's hard on a teacher to have 6 different Breanas, Michaelas, or Madisons in the same year, or within a year or two, all with different spellings, lol.

For the record:

Briana, Breana, Bryana, Breeanna, Breeyanna, Brienna, Breeahna...

Michaela, Mikaela, Mikayla, Michayla, Michayela, Mickayla, Mickaela, Makayla.....

Madyson, Madison, Maddison, Maddyson, Maddyesson, Madason, Madasyn...

Don't get me started on the Makenzies.

[Jefferson23]

8. No way, really..Placenta? That is truly cruel and bizarre. n/t

[LWolf]

33. Really.

Ignorance on the mom's part; she was illiterate and very limited in some other ways; heard one of the nurses say it, and thought it was "pretty."

[Jefferson23]

45. Ah, ok..as opposed to a deliberate choice of an inappropriate name.

Nonetheless, poor kid.

[tblue37]

53. Like the Judy Garland character, a rural girl, who called herself "Urine" (pronounced

"Yur-EEN&quot because it sounded "French" and sophisticated when she saw the label on a specimen jar in a lab.

[Nine]

67. I'm not saying your story isn't true...

...but it fits the template of a very common, (typically racist) urban legend:

http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.asp

"Placenta" is even given as one of the examples.

[BainsBane]

57. I'm with you on the spelling

Take an ordinary name and spell it strangely. That bugs me.

No, I'm not arguing for censorship. I'm just saying it bugs me.

[LWolf]

58. It bugs me in a mild way

because I have to keep track of all those different spellings and which student they go with so I don't offend.

It bugs me closer to home when the spelling doesn't follow simple rules, like adding a syllable that is not pronounced, or deleting a syllable that is.

[laundry_queen]

60. As someone who went the 'weird spelling' route

it was simply because we had a fairly common (in our area) last name and we chose relatively popular names (My name was very rare and I hated it, living in a world of Jennifers, LOL). I didn't want my kids to have name doubles and have the local bank get them all confused (I worked at the bank and the stories I could tell you about 20 people in the same area with the exact same name, same spelling and everything! Middle names too. And yes, sometimes those people got mixed up by people at the bank - not by me, but it happened on a regular basis)

With my brother, my parents went with what they thought was an uncommon name. Then we moved across country. There were kids with my brother's name everywhere. One kid, with the same spelling and everything, with the same last initial, ended up in my brother's class. They were forever known in school by the first syllable of their last name. God, that irritated my mom, LOL. Even now, all my brother's friends call him by the first syllable in his last name, instead of his first name.

I've never had problems remembering name spellings. My oldest daughter has a very common name, with an uncommon spelling. We've met at least 10 kids with her name, with many different spellings and I always remember exactly how each one is spelled. So far, in school, none of my kids have had issues. Before my oldest was born I bought a baby name book that practically shouted on every page, "don't pick a weird spelling!!!!" LOLOL the follow up book (by the same authors) that I spotted in the library after my oldest was born started with a foreword that said, "no one listened to us. In a big way." LOLOL.

[TorchTheWitch]

65. OMG! I went to school with a girl named Placenta Johnson!

She had a twin sister named Latrine. I actually got to be pretty good friends with Latrine, and to this day I'm still pissed off at the meaning of the word since I still think it sounds pretty and would make a nice girl's name. Looking back it's really strange how we got so used to her name. I never thought twice about hollering her name across a noisy cafeteria. Nobody did.

[LWolf]

66. Seriously?

[TorchTheWitch]

69. yup - somewhere probably on DU2 I have another post about it

I think we never thought much of how odd and unfortunate their names were because we went through grammar school with them when we wouldn't have known what the words meant anyway, and I guess by the time we got old enough to know we were so used to their names it just didn't seem to matter.

From what I remember, Placenta shortened her name to 'Centa or that just happened naturally like shortening a name like David to Dave. One of my neighbors as a kid had the name Marcella, but she was usually called 'Cella, and that's usually how she would introduce herself though personally I liked her complete name Marcella better. I think by the time she got into college she was using her complete name, Marcella, rather than just 'Cella. That's about the time the family moved though and we all lost touch with them, so I'm not so sure about that.

Latrine was always Latrine though... she never shortened her name though her older brother sometimes called her 'Trine or 'Triney. She really hated him calling her her 'Triney from some reason that likely has something to do with sibling teasing when they were kids. And he did always call her that in a teasing way. His name was Jerome Eban. His family called him Jerome, but his friends usually called him Jer (like rhyming with "chair&quot .

I STILL feel that Latrine is a really pretty name for a girl despite the meaning of the word which is probably why it bugs me that it means what it does. Placenta not so much though. Even if I didn't know what the word meant I still wouldn't think it sounded nice. Some names are like that for me though... I always hated the name Catherine and Cathy even more or the name Jane.

[LWolf]

70. The sound is fine.

The baggage just isn't. I wonder what she did with it as an adult.

Of course, those aren't the only names open to interpretation. Modern middle schoolers, for example, have conniptions over "Dick." Not surprising, I guess. It came up in class when someone asked me what "American Bandstand" was.

[SheilaT]

10. I think maybe the parents who give their kids weird names

just think of the child as a sort of toy, or pet. That's the only thing that makes sense to me with some of these names.

And if I were Dictator of North America I would absolutely ban strange spellings, especially ones that don't match how the name is pronounced. Too many parents want their kid to have a totally unique and different name. Just realize that your kid is a totally unique human being, and let those qualities shine through without getting mugged by a stupid name choice along the way.

And chances are, if you can think of it, so can someone else.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

26. Hmmm.

Well, I suppose it depends on which culture or country you're in.

Iirc, in German, my first name is pronounced as 'air-ick', but in Austrian, it's 'air-itch'. But a lot of places screw up and drop the h off the end anyway, even though the h is perfectly normal.

[SheilaT]

28. Those sorts of differences in pronunciation

aren't terribly important, because your name is being correctly spelled and pronounced in both places. As an American I'm pronouncing it the German way, and the h at the end doesn't confuse me at all.

My (now ex) husband's surname is Newman. Is grandparents emigrated from the Austo-Hungarian Empire around the turn of the 20th century. We went to Austria and Poland on our honeymoon, and he found it easier after about two days, to give his name the German pronunciation of "noy-man" (Neumann).

[davidpdx]

36. Interesting thoughts

I wouldn't try to guess what those people are thinking because I'd probably be wrong. My name is pretty bland. It is my middle name that drives me bonkers. Not because it's weird, but because it's long and formal (and a family name).

[SheilaT]

38. On the other hand, how often do you really need

to use the middle name, other than in formal documents?

When I married I didn't change my surname. So when we had children, they got two middle names. I'm going to give a fictitious version, but it went like this:
son number one became John Jacob Smith Jones. My surname is the Smith, father is the Jones. Again, not our real names.
Son number two became Michael Steven Smith Jones. Both times two more or less normal first and second names. Then a third and a surname. We didn't hyphenate because I've learned over the years that doing that just creates a lot of confusion and hassle.

Now the sons are grown, and when they fill out forms and such the "Smith", my surname, is almost never included, which makes me slightly sad, but it's not that big a deal. They have the choice, and my surname is still retained.

[davidpdx]

42. The thing is I work in Korea where your whole name is emphasized

When I was in the US I used my middle initial (I even got the DMV to omit my full middle name in place of just the initial). My full name is 21 letters long. What is worse is that they often confuse middle and first names because a middle name is literally a foreign concept to them.

Also married woman keep their maiden name when they marry. They have family registries that keep track of family members. When a woman marries she moves from her father's registry to her husband's. In the last decade they've had to update the system to allow a woman to have her own registry in cases where she marries a foreigner (me), he (yes, me) goes on her registry.

It's way different than what I'm used to.

Further off-topic: I just got my business cards at my new school. I didn't even think about it and just put my full middle name on there. The thing is I wanted to put just my middle initial in Korean (one side of the card is in English the other is in Korean) and couldn't as my middle name starts with "A" which translates into something not so nice (think number 2).

[SheilaT]

48. Interesting problem.

Since in Korea middle names are a foreign concept, I'm slightly surprised you didn't just stop using it. I never bother using my middle name or initial on anything anymore, unless some government entity is real fussy. My first and last name is a unique combination, I'm the only one in this country. I'm SheilaT here because T is my middle initial and I don't want to be any more identifiable than that. My drivers license only has first and last name, I just checked.

[randome]

11. They could always try to name him 'Anonymous'.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[Rex]

24. So would they have opposed rationalwiki?

Or is it the 'leaks' part? Maybe Wiki is too much like Wicca. I dunno, some strange shit in the world. Can I name my kid Facebook?

"Go long Facebook!"

[Recursion]

40. I think it's more the "your kid's name isn't a chance for you to prove how cool you are" factor

Give kids normal names, people...

[frazzled]

27. I am about to become a first-time grandparent ...

and I have studiously avoided asking what name they are planning to use. I'm kind of terrified I won't like it, and I don't want to betray any negative feelings. I guess as long as it's not Wikileaks (or Ermentrude), I'll learn to love it.

[pscot]

29. The famous teutonic sense of humor

You can name your kid Wolf, but not Peppermint.

[struggle4progress]

30. "They named him Wolfgang! Who would name a cute baby after a gang of wolves?"

[3catwoman3]

31. Years ago, I had a little patient...

...whose mom named him Jerome. Pretty straightforward, right?

Wrong. She pronounced it "Jeremy," and would get all pissed off when people pronounced it the way it looked.

Another patient was named Diamonek. Mom pronounced it Dominique.

I'm sure both these kids have spent their lives having to explain their name. Unfair and thoughtless on the part of their parents, IMO.

[laundry_queen]

61. It really doesn't matter what name you have

There will always be a bunch of idiots that need explanations.

My name is uncommon, but not unusual (was popular back in the day). My parents went with the conventional spelling. My name has a 'nickname' that is very common. I ended up explaining to every new person I met that, no, I didn't go by that nickname, TYVM, but that I used my full name. Some people ignored me outright and kept calling me by my nickname.

I'm Canadian, and one thing I found was that the pronunciation of my name changed when I crossed the border. LOL. I always had to explain how my name was pronounced in the US. Never had to explain it to most Canadians (the ones who did use my full first name).

My SIL has a very common, easy last name. She still gets tons of grief on how to spell/pronounce it. It's a totally common WORD for crying out loud. If you cant' spell or pronounce her last name, then you are illiterate. It's crazy how totally dumb some people are.

[3catwoman3]

64. Chuckling (wryly) about your SIL.

My maiden name (it just occurred to me that this is probably a hopelessly dated term) is Ball. I was always astonished by how many people would ask me how to spell it. One guess and you're out.

I have NEVER seen it spelled any other way - not Bawl, not Balle, not Baul.

[randome]

34. "My name is Sue! How do you do? Now you're gonna die!"

[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Beacool]

37. What kind of idiots want to name their child Wikileaks????

Poor kid......

[Skip Intro]

39. Some people shouldn't be parents. n/t

[3catwoman3]

55. That is for damn sure.

Im my nearly 40 year career in pediatrics, I have met many of them.

[Recursion]

41. Huh. Germany also doesn't allow androgynous names either, apparently

http://mentalfloss.com/article/25034/8-countries-fascinating-baby-naming-laws

[LeftishBrit]

43. I can sympathize somewhat with the ban, as any kid in an English-speaking country who had a name

with 'leaks' in it would be subject to a lot of teasing.

Admittedly, it may not have similar connotations in German.

[librechik]

49. unfortunately, you can't spell "Assange" without using A-S-S

that's a dealbreaker in elementary school.

[LiberalElite]

51. Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue

[muriel_volestrangler]

59. It's a bit harsh to ban Stompie and McDonald

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_Hobley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stompie_Moeketsi

OK, they're not German, but it's not claiming to be a cultural thing.

[Zorra]

68. Wikileaks Hamalaw is a freakin' awesome name!!! nt