Sorry, parents, but no little Lucifers will be entering this world. Not in New Zealand, anyways.
The country's Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages is cracking down on parents who want to give their little bundle of joy names that are too creative.
It effectively banned the name Lucifer after getting the request from not one, not two but three parents.
In the past two years, the country has banned 102 names deemed to be too out there. The list includes Baron, Bishop, Duke, General, Judge, Justice, King, Knight and Mr. Those names were banned because they were deemed to be too similar to titles.
The name Messiah has also been turned down, as have requests to name kids 89, C, D, I and T. As well, the agency has refused to give a pass to full stops, asterisks, virgules and other punctuation marks.
In the past, the agency has had a liberal policy of letting just about any name get stamped on a birth certificate. In 2008, for instance, it approved the names Benson and Hedges, given to a pair of twins by parents who presumably loved the cigarette brand. That same year it also green lit the names Violence and Number 16 Bus Shelter, both for boys.
As the Herald Sun reported, one little girl christened Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii was so traumatized by the name that she had it legally changed at age nine.
But the agency hasn't been entirely permissive about names in the past. In 2007, it shot down parents who wanted to name their baby 4Real. After they found out they couldn't have a name that started with a number, they decided they were going to go ahead and try to name him Superman instead.
New Zealand isn't the only country grappling with parents who want to give their children odd names. In 2007, a judge in the Dominican Republic submitted a proposal to ban names that are either confusing or gave no indication of gender, such as the names Qeurida Pina (Dear Pineapple) and Tonton Ruiz (Dummy Ruiz), both of which appear in the country's civil registry.
In Sweden, where a naming law governs just what monikers parents can bestow on their children, courts have approved names such as Lego and Google. Superman, Metallica and Elvis didn't pass the test, however. Nor did the name Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, pronounced Albin.
Should parents be allowed to name their kids anything they want?
Dave McGinn