Here in the U.K. you can pretty much call your child any name, I mean Bob Geldof called his kids Pixie, Peaches and Fif Trixibelle for goodness sake.
However, other countries are less liberal with whole lists of banned baby names.
Of course many of these are predictable such as Facebook and Hitler, but there are some names on the list which to us are perfectly normal and reasonable.
Here are some of the most unusual names that have been banned around the world:
Tom
In Portugal all nicknames are banned from birth certificates so although Tomás would be allowed, it couldn’t be shortened to Tom.
Authorities in the country also state that children’s names must be traditionally Portuguese, a full name and not unisex.
In fact that is an official list of names that you must pick from, the only baby name book any future Portuguese parents need.
Alice
In 2016 Saudi Arabia released a list of names that were banned.
Many of these including typical Western names such as Alice, Linda, Elaine and Lauren.
Many names with royal connections such as Prince and Malika, which means queen are also not allowed.
Bear
Alicia Silverstone, Kate Winslet and most recently Cheryl all have a child named Bear.
However, if they had been living in Malaysia they would have had to found another name for their baby boys.
That is because the names of all animals, fruits, vegetables, colours and numbers are banned.
Harriet
Like Portugal, Iceland also has an official list of names that you must pick from called the National Register of Persons.
You can however pay a fee and apply for government approval for any other names but they must only include letters from the Icelandic alphabet.
One family was therefore unable to renew their daughter Harriet and son Duncan’s passports as their names couldn’t be conjugated in Icelandic.
Instead the passports they carry list their names as ‘Girl’ and ‘Boy’.
Sarah
Morocco is another country where parents must choose from a list of acceptable names that align with ‘Moroccan identity’.
Sarah with a ‘H’ is therefore banned as this is the Hebrew spelling.
However, Sara without the ‘H’ is allowed because it is the Arabic version.
Hermione
In the Mexican state of Sonora, certain ‘odd’ names are forbidden in an effort to prevent possible bullying.
Many of the names banned are ridiculous such as Twitter, Hitler and Christmas Day, but there are some names on there that are reasonable.
Film and television fans over there will certainly be very upset that they can’t name their children Rocky, Hermione, Rambo or even Harry Potter!
Anal
In New Zealand parents have to run any baby names by the government and each year there are a whole list of unusual ones they failed to pass the test.
I am not sure why these parents wanted to call their children ‘Anal’, ‘Mafia No Fear’ and ‘4Real’ but these were all questionable entries put to the government and denied.
Some do sneak past the authority though which approved the names ‘Violence’ and, perhaps my favourite of all, ‘Number 16 Bus Shelter’.
To be honest I am pretty gutted that someone has stolen my creative baby name. I was rather looking forward to naming my future child after my favourite bus stop.
