The idea that corporations could own your name is positively dystopian.
All the women named Madison suddenly owe royalties to the rightsholders of the 1984 mermaid-in-Manhattan comedy Splash. Also, anyone named Wendy has to pay the J. M. Barrie estate or change their name to Gwendolyn.
Now I wonder if that would require a lawsuit between the J. M. Barrie estate & the Wendy's restaurant chain.
“Son Of Matthew” Is a pretty name for a girl though.
This has been pissing me off for so long!
In fact anyone using surnames as first names. Stop it.
But Go back far enough, and a surname is just the given name of your father, or the town you live in, or the trade you do.
More accurate to stop using given names as surnames!
Absolutely. We need to throw off these 11th century traditions and make sure our children’s entire names sound like a double barrelled surname.
what a timely reference that everyone will get right away
don't get me wrong- I watched Splash on HBO once a summer for half a decade- I got chu
owned the name's trademark
People really don't understand trademark despite it being in the name. It's a trade mark. It's a mark on something you trade. It only applies to commercial products. Unless Warner Brothers sells children there's no trademark violation.
Unless Warner Brother's sells children
With the way the world is lately, it wouldn't surprise me if they did.
Although, if any one company was going to that, it'd probably be Disney.
When they age out of the It's A Small World cast, Disney sells them to Nestlé.
Aha but the passport office knew something we didn't.
Clearly this is proof they sell children overseas.
Poor kid gonna grow up and watch the show where she was named after right before the final season.
There's a final season? I'm pretty sure they decided to wait for GRRM to finish the books as it would be silly to just go off the map and start making things up, as that could go awfully wrong.
I sure hope they don't rush it just because they want to go do some other projects!
That'd be disastrous.
No way in hell HBO would allow such a profoundly cultural phenomenon just go to shit. That would be insanely shortsighted for a company that takes such pride in their filmmaking.
My name is alarmingly close to one of the characters (my mate who was reading the books when they first came out thought it was hilarious), but at least I’m not the newsreader Jon Snow.
Imagine the number of times people have smugly said to him, "you know nothing!" Ina bad Scottish accent.
Mental how many people actually thought Khaleesi was the character’s name.
Do you think maybe it’s just the fictional version for all the people that named their children Earl, Princess, Queen, Duke, or any of the other titles that became names?
Add Caesar too. Although it has declined in popularity.
Originally in my list then dropped because when I’ve offered this counter in the past I’ve had people argue that was originally a name. Regina and Reginald should have been in my list as well.
How to tell if your parents are morons...
This girl is going to call herself "K." by the time she's 14.
Or Sarah.
Official explained there had been a misunderstanding and the guidance staff had originally given applies only to people changing their names.
It's still fucked
This seems fucking daft. How do you refuse a name? Unless your name is a literal blank then you should be allowed any stupid name you desire.
Here in Germany, they can decide to refuse a name for a child if it's overly krass or might make the child's life unduly difficult. While one can argue about whether they like that, at least it only happens once. If you have a name, you can get as many passports with it on there as you want.
some twonk at the passport office invented this rule.
hence the apology. The Uk passport office has no right or duty to enforce trademarks.
Official explained there had been a misunderstanding and the guidance staff had originally given applies only to people changing their names.
Even that doesn't make sense. Trademark law doesn't apply to peoples personal names.
In Malaysia same rule apply, but the only gate is from the National Registration Department, where they might reject name including joke name and stupidly long name, the other department have no such power.
At least no child have to live with the name Biggus Dickus or Incontinetia Buttocks for 18 years.
I met a guy who had no first name. He had to be entered into systems as "NFN."
There's nothing wrong with not having a name that's literally blank.
No first name and no name are two different concepts.
Morally, sure, there's nothing wrong with having no name. Socially and practically there absolutely is.
Depends on the society and what it considers practical.
One of my friends from church growing up was from Nigeria, and apparently there's a culture within Nigeria that doesn't believe in naming their kids until they come of age. He had no first or middle name, just his family name. He went by Cory, which is apparently what his parents planned on naming him once he was (iirc) 13, but it wasn't "officially" his name. But apparently it caused all sorts of problems for them when they immigrated, and the US makes it much more complicated than they expected, because they were used to more informal/traditional/less legalistic systems around it.
Caveat, I was like 9, so I may be misremembering some detail. I'm also only, like, 80% it was Nigeria. I know it was Africa, but I'm not entirely positive it was Nigeria, but I think it was.
A Danish couple went court to be allowed to name their child Christophpher. That's not a typo.
People are stupid.
A Danish couple went court to be allowed to name their child Christophpher. That’s not a typo.
What's their surname? Hfuhruhurr?
The Passport Office has admitted that it was a mistake and have sorted this out. The interesting question is how this happened. I've known a few people who work their and they aren't beyond dicking about - back in the day they might mess with famous people by sticking their photograph on upside down. I could see them doing something like this is they thought someone had a stupid name.
It is a stupid name. Why lumber the kid with an unnecessarily daft name? It's not even easy to spell.
I've got a somewhat odd name (at least I'm not named after a character from a book), and I do wish my parents would just have gone with Tom or something.
It's also not actually a name in the source material. It's like watching a story about 18th century France and naming your daughter "Dauphine", or about 1st century BC Rome and naming your son "Consul".
Even a blank name can work for some; https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ is a fun read if you've never encountered it before.
This doesn't make any sense. The colour brown is a trademark of UPS, yet I've known people with the last name Brown who were able to get passports.
While completely daft on part of the passport office, I suppose this is a cautionary tale about naming your kids after popular TV characters (particularly those with unique names). Turns out it can cause you a spot of trouble
Especially if their character arc hasn't run its course yet. They might turn into a genocidal maniac that has sex with her estranged half brother or something like that.
So many good names in that show and she chooses Khaleesi (which just was the title of her, right?)
"My son's name is also Joffrey."
That's an easy one to shrug off in years to come as a poorly spelled Jeffrey. Khaleesi just says "My name is one is a long line of bad mistakes my parents made."
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