WEBVTT - What Can't You Name Your Baby?

0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.040
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,

0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.440
<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogelbaum here, Choosing a name for a tiny human

0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.720
<v Speaker 1>that you've never even met is a big decision. There's

0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.079
<v Speaker 1>evidence that your baby's name can influence her future, and

0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.840
<v Speaker 1>it can set her apart from the masses. Take Magician's

0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:23.840
<v Speaker 1>pen and Emily Gillette, for example. The duo named their

0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.759
<v Speaker 1>baby Sultan, which certainly hints at a future in the

0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.560
<v Speaker 1>family business. Then there are celebrity parents who take baby

0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.839
<v Speaker 1>naming to an art form. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and musician

0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.280
<v Speaker 1>Chris Martin opted for Apple, and power performers Beyonce and

0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.600
<v Speaker 1>jay Z, of course, named their daughter Blue Ivy. While

0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.800
<v Speaker 1>kids with unusual names will never understand the joy or

0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.120
<v Speaker 1>annoyance of being known by first name, last initial, like

0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.240
<v Speaker 1>me and the other three Lauren's in my elementary school class,

0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.040
<v Speaker 1>they will spend a lifetime living with their unusual monikers.

0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.240
<v Speaker 1>But all those unique names prompt the question is there

0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.600
<v Speaker 1>anything you can't name your baby? With the breadth of

0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.200
<v Speaker 1>choices in baby name databases, narrowing down a selection can

0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.640
<v Speaker 1>seem impossible, But in a smattering of states and countries,

0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.039
<v Speaker 1>the choices have been limited for you. There are some

0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:16.040
<v Speaker 1>things that you cannot name a baby. There's no universal

0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.880
<v Speaker 1>law governing baby names. The regulations where they exist very

0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.440
<v Speaker 1>greatly by country, and the laws of individual localities in

0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.720
<v Speaker 1>these countries don't line up cohesively. In the United States,

0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.760
<v Speaker 1>for example, state laws restrict parental naming rights in a

0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.200
<v Speaker 1>variety of ways. For example, there may be restrictions on

0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:37.480
<v Speaker 1>particular surnames or diacritical marks like accent marks, and prohibitions

0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:42.959
<v Speaker 1>on obscenities, numerals, or pictograms being used. We spoke with J. R. Scrabink,

0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.600
<v Speaker 1>senior counsel with the Snell Law firm in Austin, Texas.

0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.600
<v Speaker 1>He said, generally, these laws need to comply with the

0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.640
<v Speaker 1>due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in order to

0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.080
<v Speaker 1>be constitutional, the fourteenth Amendment being the one that prevents

0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:00.480
<v Speaker 1>state laws from infringing on citizens nationally guaranteed rights. Those

0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.080
<v Speaker 1>state restrictions are generally practical ones, such as requiring only

0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.200
<v Speaker 1>letters of the alphabet and not pictograms or symbols. We

0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.560
<v Speaker 1>also spoke with Matt C. Pinsker, an adjunct professor who

0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:16.400
<v Speaker 1>teaches constitutional law at Virginia Commonwealth University. He said, for example,

0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.160
<v Speaker 1>in the US, a name entered on a birth certificate

0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.040
<v Speaker 1>must be entered in the traditional letters of the alphabet

0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.200
<v Speaker 1>and not in the letters or symbols of the Chinese alphabet.

0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.560
<v Speaker 1>Other times, names are limited in length because of record

0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.560
<v Speaker 1>keeping software. Some states allow accents over names, while others

0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.920
<v Speaker 1>do not. For example, Pinsker says the accent over the

0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:40.400
<v Speaker 1>e in Jose is actually prohibited by California law. A

0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.120
<v Speaker 1>move to overturn the law banning diacritical marks failed in twoteen,

0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.720
<v Speaker 1>in large part because adding Spanish accents to birth records

0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:52.680
<v Speaker 1>could cost state registrars and estimated ten million dollars. American

0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.240
<v Speaker 1>naming laws are different from those on other continents. Pinsker said.

0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.799
<v Speaker 1>In Europe, parents are not allowed to name their children

0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.800
<v Speaker 1>Hitler or Stalin, but in America that would violate the

0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.280
<v Speaker 1>freedom of expression. Denmark in particular, has some of the

0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.120
<v Speaker 1>most restrictive naming laws. In order to abide by the

0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.200
<v Speaker 1>country's law on personal names, parents may select a name

0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.760
<v Speaker 1>from a list of seven thousand approved names for both

0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.359
<v Speaker 1>boys and girls, all using traditional spellings. To give a

0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.320
<v Speaker 1>child a moniker that is not pre approved requires review

0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.760
<v Speaker 1>by government officials. Of the estimated one thousand, one hundred

0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.920
<v Speaker 1>names that are scrutinized annually about are rejected. Among the

0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.960
<v Speaker 1>thrown out names anus, Pluto, and Monkey. On the approved

0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:36.560
<v Speaker 1>list names like Benji, Molly, and Fee. In some places,

0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.800
<v Speaker 1>names aren't officially banned until after a parent chooses a

0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:45.120
<v Speaker 1>problematic moniker for a child. For example, in officials in Sonora,

0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.000
<v Speaker 1>Mexico reviewed actual names from the states a hundred and

0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.800
<v Speaker 1>thirty two newborn registries and banned sixty one of those names,

0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:57.520
<v Speaker 1>including Facebook, Batman, and RoboCop. Previously, the state had no

0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:03.240
<v Speaker 1>such prohibitions, which means babies legally received names such as U. S. Navy, Hitler,

0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.960
<v Speaker 1>and Harry Potter before that ban was enacted. For many officials,

0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.680
<v Speaker 1>it's less about the names and more about what they represent,

0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.960
<v Speaker 1>a potential lifetime of put downs. Sonora States Civil Registry

0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.440
<v Speaker 1>Director Christina Ramirez told the Associated Press the law is

0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.160
<v Speaker 1>very clear because it prohibits giving children names that are

0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.880
<v Speaker 1>derogatory or that don't have any meaning and that can

0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:28.160
<v Speaker 1>lead to bullying. Aside from specific state or county restrictions,

0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.960
<v Speaker 1>parents still have access to a considerable variety of names,

0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.560
<v Speaker 1>some that are potentially objectionable. For reasons ranging from historical

0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:40.920
<v Speaker 1>issues to crude, controversial, or criminal references, which perhaps means

0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.039
<v Speaker 1>that the real question prompted here isn't a could, but

0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:52.040
<v Speaker 1>a should. Today's episode was written by Laurie L. Dove

0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.599
<v Speaker 1>and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on this and

0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.960
<v Speaker 1>lots of other unique topics, visit our home planet, how

0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:10.400
<v Speaker 1>stuff Works dot com