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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum here, Choosing a name for a tiny human

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Speaker 1: that you've never even met is a big decision. There's

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Speaker 1: evidence that your baby's name can influence her future, and

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Speaker 1: it can set her apart from the masses. Take Magician's

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Speaker 1: pen and Emily Gillette, for example. The duo named their

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Speaker 1: baby Sultan, which certainly hints at a future in the

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Speaker 1: family business. Then there are celebrity parents who take baby

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Speaker 1: naming to an art form. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and musician

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Speaker 1: Chris Martin opted for Apple, and power performers Beyonce and

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Speaker 1: jay Z, of course, named their daughter Blue Ivy. While

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Speaker 1: kids with unusual names will never understand the joy or

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Speaker 1: annoyance of being known by first name, last initial, like

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Speaker 1: me and the other three Lauren's in my elementary school class,

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Speaker 1: they will spend a lifetime living with their unusual monikers.

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Speaker 1: But all those unique names prompt the question is there

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Speaker 1: anything you can't name your baby? With the breadth of

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Speaker 1: choices in baby name databases, narrowing down a selection can

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Speaker 1: seem impossible, But in a smattering of states and countries,

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Speaker 1: the choices have been limited for you. There are some

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Speaker 1: things that you cannot name a baby. There's no universal

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Speaker 1: law governing baby names. The regulations where they exist very

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Speaker 1: greatly by country, and the laws of individual localities in

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Speaker 1: these countries don't line up cohesively. In the United States,

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Speaker 1: for example, state laws restrict parental naming rights in a

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Speaker 1: variety of ways. For example, there may be restrictions on

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Speaker 1: particular surnames or diacritical marks like accent marks, and prohibitions

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Speaker 1: on obscenities, numerals, or pictograms being used. We spoke with J. R. Scrabink,

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Speaker 1: senior counsel with the Snell Law firm in Austin, Texas.

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Speaker 1: He said, generally, these laws need to comply with the

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Speaker 1: due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in order to

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Speaker 1: be constitutional, the fourteenth Amendment being the one that prevents

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Speaker 1: state laws from infringing on citizens nationally guaranteed rights. Those

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Speaker 1: state restrictions are generally practical ones, such as requiring only

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Speaker 1: letters of the alphabet and not pictograms or symbols. We

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Speaker 1: also spoke with Matt C. Pinsker, an adjunct professor who

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Speaker 1: teaches constitutional law at Virginia Commonwealth University. He said, for example,

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Speaker 1: in the US, a name entered on a birth certificate

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Speaker 1: must be entered in the traditional letters of the alphabet

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Speaker 1: and not in the letters or symbols of the Chinese alphabet.

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Speaker 1: Other times, names are limited in length because of record

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Speaker 1: keeping software. Some states allow accents over names, while others

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Speaker 1: do not. For example, Pinsker says the accent over the

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Speaker 1: e in Jose is actually prohibited by California law. A

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Speaker 1: move to overturn the law banning diacritical marks failed in twoteen,

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Speaker 1: in large part because adding Spanish accents to birth records

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Speaker 1: could cost state registrars and estimated ten million dollars. American

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Speaker 1: naming laws are different from those on other continents. Pinsker said.

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Speaker 1: In Europe, parents are not allowed to name their children

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Speaker 1: Hitler or Stalin, but in America that would violate the

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Speaker 1: freedom of expression. Denmark in particular, has some of the

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Speaker 1: most restrictive naming laws. In order to abide by the

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Speaker 1: country's law on personal names, parents may select a name

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Speaker 1: from a list of seven thousand approved names for both

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Speaker 1: boys and girls, all using traditional spellings. To give a

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Speaker 1: child a moniker that is not pre approved requires review

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Speaker 1: by government officials. Of the estimated one thousand, one hundred

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Speaker 1: names that are scrutinized annually about are rejected. Among the

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Speaker 1: thrown out names anus, Pluto, and Monkey. On the approved

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Speaker 1: list names like Benji, Molly, and Fee. In some places,

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Speaker 1: names aren't officially banned until after a parent chooses a

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Speaker 1: problematic moniker for a child. For example, in officials in Sonora,

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Speaker 1: Mexico reviewed actual names from the states a hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirty two newborn registries and banned sixty one of those names,

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Speaker 1: including Facebook, Batman, and RoboCop. Previously, the state had no

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Speaker 1: such prohibitions, which means babies legally received names such as U. S. Navy, Hitler,

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Speaker 1: and Harry Potter before that ban was enacted. For many officials,

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Speaker 1: it's less about the names and more about what they represent,

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Speaker 1: a potential lifetime of put downs. Sonora States Civil Registry

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Speaker 1: Director Christina Ramirez told the Associated Press the law is

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Speaker 1: very clear because it prohibits giving children names that are

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Speaker 1: derogatory or that don't have any meaning and that can

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Speaker 1: lead to bullying. Aside from specific state or county restrictions,

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Speaker 1: parents still have access to a considerable variety of names,

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Speaker 1: some that are potentially objectionable. For reasons ranging from historical

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Speaker 1: issues to crude, controversial, or criminal references, which perhaps means

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Speaker 1: that the real question prompted here isn't a could, but

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Speaker 1: a should. Today's episode was written by Laurie L. Dove

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Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: lots of other unique topics, visit our home planet, how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com