Russian Family Law Developments
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Russian law makers commenced working on a bill banning too exotic and insulting baby names, as well prohibiting parents from using figures, punctuation and other symbols in children’s names.
The bill proposes a list of names for civil registry offices. If parents wish to choose a name outside the list, they would need a special permission to do so from child welfare authorities according to the proposed legislation.
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 divorceinrussia.com |
Under the current Russian family law a Civil Registry may not refuse to register a child’s name that is dissonant, offensive, derogatory, uncultured or difficult to pronounce.
Nevertheless, a case involving the Moscow Civil Registry reached the court when the former refused to register a child’s name. The child, now 12 years old, has no documents, as the court upheld the refusal of the Moscow Civil Registry to record a name “BOC rVF 260602” chosen by the boy’s parents. The suggested name loosely stands for “a biological object of the human species from the Voronin-Frolov family, born 26 June 2002.” The Civil Registry argued it was against the best interests of little BOC, as he is called, to have his name being recorded as suggested.
Arguably, parents’ creativity attempts when it comes to children names may have a negative impact on the child’s psyche.
Russia is not the only country to edit some parents’ eccentric ideas.
New Zealand
In New Zealand after authorities had to turn down a few parents who wanted to name their newborns various provocative names including Justice, King, Lucifer and 4Real. Some also tried to name their babies after punctuation marks such as ‘”*” (the asterisk) or ‘”.”(period). A 9-year-old girl was taken away from her parents by the state so that her name could be changed from “Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii.” Below is the list of children’s names prohibited in New Zealand since 2001 (times they came up)
baby names
| Justice | 62 | Sir | 2 | M | 1 |
| King | 31 | T | 2 | Mafia No Fear 3 | 1 |
| Princess | 28 | I | 1 | Majesti | 1 |
| Prince | 27 | II | 1 | MC | 1 |
| Royal | 25 | III | 1 | S P | 1 |
| Duke | 10 | V | 1 | L B | 1 |
| Major | 9 | VI | 1 | Lord 4 | 1 |
| Bishop | 9 | 2nd | 1 | Minister | 1 |
| Majesty | 7 | 3rd 1 | 1 | MJ | 1 |
| J | 6 | 5th 2 | 1 | Mr | 1 |
| Lucifer | 6 | A.J | 1 | Sergeant 5 | 1 |
| using brackets around middle names | 4 | Baron | 1 | President | 1 |
| Knight | 4 | C | 1 | Queen V | 1 |
| Lady | 3 | Christ | 1 | Regal | 1 |
| using back slash between names | 3 | Chief | 1 | Rogue | 1 |
| Judge | 3 | Constable | 1 | Saint | 1 |
| E | 2 | C J | 1 | V8 | 1 |
| Jr | 2 | D | 1 | 89 | 1 |
| Justus | 2 | Eminence | 1 | 4real 6 | 1 |
| Master | 2 | G | 1 | * (asterisk) | 1 |
| Messiah | 2 | General | 1 | . (full stop) 7 | 1 |
| Queen | 2 | H-Q | 1 | ||
| Royale | 2 | Honour | 1 | ||
Sweden
Innovative Swedish parents came up with the following names for their children: Metallica, Superman, Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, Q, and, of course, Ikea. Those are prohibited baby names in Sweden now.
Dominican Republic
In 2009, the Dominican Republic contemplated banning unusual names after a host of parents began naming their children after cars or fruit.
Germany
Osama bin Laden – Less than a year after 9/11, a Turkish couple, were refused permission to name their child Osama Bin Laden by German officials. “Hitler” is also a prohibited baby name. Germany developed guidelines for parents, which suggests that names must “indicate the gender of the child” and it must not be likely to lead to humiliation.
Russian Law Governing Baby Names
Choosing a child’s name is an important step. Parents can usually choose any given name for their child. However, in some countries the Registrar can refuse to register a prohibited name. If it is obscene or offensive or cannot be established by repute or usage, because it is too long, or contains symbols without phonetic significance, such as an exclamation or question mark, or other reason. There is no specific provision in the Russian law either dealing with this issue at present. It is, therefore, a welcome change in Russian family law that would allow some criterions of good taste and sensibility to be applied to giving and changing a child’s name in the child’s best interest. However, for those parents thinking completely out of box when it comes to baby names, this may be your last chance to do it before the Bill governing baby names becomes part of Russian law.