These Parents Have to Go to Court After Giving Their Baby Daughter a Very Common Name

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/whats-hot/these-parents-have-to-go-to-court-after-giving-their-baby-daughter-a-very-common-name/ar-BBK8EqB?li=BBnbfcL

Yeah, despite all the good stuff in France, they could really stand to pull the sticks out of their butts now and then.

They're the same way with French language...there's an official definition of all words, over which there is much annual haggling and arguing, and as far as they're concerned if a word isn't on the list, it doesn't exist. It took the Academy (l'Academie Francaise) something like 3 years to decide to call these machines we all type on "ordinateurs" instead of "computers" (said with a French accent)! :)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise#Anglicisms

I doubt the kid will be that traumatized by being named Liam. This seems like a decison for the parents.

Didn’t the nazis have a “ Verboden name” list of names for babies?
I heard ( don’t know if true) that when the France French go to Quebec, they demand that the Québécois speak to them in English, because they speak “ crap French”. When foreigners are just visiting France, a lot of them get mad if people don’t speak French with a perfect accent, but if they don’t speak French at all, they get mad too, but when they go to Quebec, they expect them to speak French their way, or not at all

My French has never been great, but I've had nothing but kindness from the natives in France and Quebec Province. My feeling is that if you are trying, and not a jerk, it goes a long way.

before I visited France some years ago. I'd only had a couple of semesters of night-school French, but I speak Spanish fluently, and seem to pick up language stuff pretty well.

My grandma always taught me that good manners count for a lot. That was certainly the case for me in France. I used "please," "thank you," and expressed appreciation a lot. Everywhere I went, I found that regardless of my linguistic limitations, the people were very gracious and kind.

I had a funny experience while eating lunch in Paris. The young man who was serving me spoke very little English, so we limped along on my French. Then I got stuck and muttered to myself in Spanish, "oh, how do you say that??" The kid lit up like a lantern and asked me, "Do you speak Spanish?" When I said that I did, he started chattering like a squirrel, telling about his planned upcoming holidays in Spain, how happy he was to have a chance to practice, what a beautiful girlfriend he had, on and on.

Since there were hardly any other customers he had to keep an eye on, we had time for a delightful conversation. We didn't speak each other's language very well, but because we had Spanish in common, we had a great time.

My German-born grandma always encouraged me to study languages. She said that languages helped to build bridges between cultures. She was totally bilingual; her English was flawless.

I think your story about Quebec French is probably apocryphal - Québecois French is extremely charming and most French people love it (as do I). It gives you a whole new idea of Céline Dion when you hear her speak her mother tongue (which is Québecois French).

About names, however, the French do indeed have a broomstick up their nether regions. For many years, it was forbidden to choose any name which was not in the official calendar of Catholic saints. As the official calendar included public holidays ("Fête nationale" abbreviated to "Fête nat.", some children from the French overseas territories ended up with Fête-nat as a first name. It sounds crazy, but it's true: I've met one!

As a foreigner towards the end of this prohibition, I was allowed to call my children what I wanted (my son's second name is... Athelstan!). One of my American friends here even took advantage of this dispensation to call his son Catfish.

I'm told that baseball fans will understand.

Tom in Paris

Soft Machine Wrote:
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> I'm told that baseball fans will understand.

Indeed! It was the first thing I thought of when you mentioned "Catfish!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish_Hunter

These are relatively frequent stories in France. The law is there to protect children. The French have a bit of a different relationship to the "nanny state” than Americans do.

A few cases that I recall off the top of my head: A child was named Jihad, and the local Prefect objected for the obvious reason. Most interesting part of the story, Jihad is apparently a very common boy's name among Libyan..........Christians!

Parents, who had already lost their parental rights for unmentioned reasons, named their little girl Nutella. Yes, after the hazelnut spread. A judge decided to change her name to Ella.

It goes on and on.

I can definitely see it when someone names their child “ Rainbow “ or some other more ridiculous name. I wouldn’t like it myself.
I don’t see anything wrong with a girl having a traditional masculine name. It’s like the name Connie. I’ve heard both sexes with that name.
I can definitely see why the name “ Jihad” would be unacceptable.
You can always use the ridiculous names as just nick names only, like” Pumpkin “, etc

Hockeyrat Wrote:
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> I can definitely see it when someone names their
> child “ Rainbow “ or some other more
> ridiculous name. I wouldn’t like it myself.


The name "Rainbow" might seem ridiculous to you. But I doubt you have a problem with "Iris"--a traditional English female name that means Rainbow in Latin.

My wife feels that it's frequently hard on boys to be given names that are more often girls' names, but that most girls don't have much trouble with the reverse. People around here have given their kids names that are so incredibly stupid that it probably should be illegal, although I think L-a (pronounced "Ladasha" because the dash ain't silent, you know) is actually an urban legend; everyone knows someone who supposedly knows the kid named "L-a," but no one actually knows the kid herself; ditto with the twins supposedly named orangello and lemonjello (pronounced or/AHN/juhllo and le/MAHNjeuhlo.

I think anyone who gives his or her kid a name that isn't on a list of the top 1,500 or so names should have to meet with a panel consisting of perhaps teachers, pediatricians, psychologists, and maybe a couple of bullies (where future bullies are concerned, be mindful of what words rhyme with a name) so that they can hear what misfortunes are likely to fall upon a kid with the name or the peculiar spelling of the name that the parents have chosen. (One of my pet peeves is when people choose non-standard spellings that are also not phonetically correct, then become angry when the name is mispronounced. My wife's aunt's neighbor is named Jamie, but spells it "Jammie." Jammie's twin sister is named Janie but spells it "Jannie." Both of them practically foam at the mouth when anyone pronounces their names phonetically. My wife's aunt tried to explain to Jammie the rule of the vowel preceding a double consonant usually being pronounced with the vowel's short sound, but it went right over Jammie's head. The fruit didn't fall terribly far from the tree in her case.) In any event, the parents should have to listen to people who should know tell them how their kid's name is going to be mispronounced with the spelling they've chosen, how the kid is going to have to spell his or her name aloud to everyone because the parents have made up such a weird-ass spelling, or what mean nicknames bullies are likely to come up with for their kids based on the unusual names the parents have chosen. In the end, the decision still should probably belong to the parents because there's a limit to how much government involvement any of us need in our daily lives, but the parents should at least have to hear what it is they're likely doing to their children by giving the bizarre name or the unconventional spelling of the name.

Some things cannot be anticipated, as someone with a name one has chosen for his or her kid may become infamous. That's just the luck of the draw, but when it's something that can be predicted, people really should think twice before saddling a kid with such a loaded name.

of a kid whose name was (and I am being absolutely sincere here) "@$$hole." That's what was on the birth certificate and the Social Security data base.

The mother said that the kid's name was pronounced "AH-zho-lay."

That was more than 20 years ago. I have often wondered how the kid has dealt with that name. Can you imagine being a teacher, and having to call that name during roll call, not having a clue about how to say it?

catnip Wrote:
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> of a kid whose name was (and I am being absolutely
> sincere here) "@$$hole." That's what was on the
> birth certificate and the Social Security data
> base.
>
> The mother said that the kid's name was pronounced
> "AH-zho-lay."
>
> That was more than 20 years ago. I have often
> wondered how the kid has dealt with that name. Can
> you imagine being a teacher, and having to call
> that name during roll call, not having a clue
> about how to say it?

That shouldn't be legal in any English-speaking country. It's a cruel thing to do to a child.

>>"or the peculiar spelling of the name that the parents have chosen. (One of my pet peeves is when people choose non-standard spellings that are also not phonetically correct, then become angry when the name is mispronounced."

As a teacher, this is my biggest issue. I always struggle with names the first few days of school, and sometimes I have to ask the previous year's teacher if the child is a boy or a girl.

I wish that parents would come to a teacher for help in order to spell a given name phonetically. Sometimes the spelling bears little relation to how the name is pronounced.

A number of countries have laws retricting baby names

http://mentalfloss.com/article/25034/8-countries-fascinating-baby-naming-laws

https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-04-01/these-11-countries-are-banning-certain-baby-names-because-you-cant-be-trusted

At the time my daughter was born, we had never heard the name my ex came up with. She is 32 now. Her name is Kiara. She doesn't take is poorly when people pronounce her name, but she did put a little note on her name tag when she worked at a theater "Key Air Uh." She gets some pretty crazy spellings.

Amazing how many girls are named Kiara now. In fact, the second Lion King movie had a character named Kiara and my daughter has the Kiara stuffed lion from Disney.

When she was first born and we would tell people her name, we always got "WHAT?" Actually, I babysat a boy so many years ago and he had a daughter the same time I did. Her name is Kiara, too.

I was really surprised to find out about the poster on here whose daughter's name is Kiara who passed away. That has really touched me and I'm so sorry about him losing his child. I can't even imagine what that is like.

Now, my ex, we won't post his name. His name is his grandmothers maiden name--his first name. His middle name is his mother's maiden name. He has an "interesting" name. Everyone always pronounces it incorrectly when they first meet him.