Is this an egregious application of State power on religion?

Laws for the appropriate naming of a child are actually in effect in many States and Countries around the world. They are for the protection of the child, not the protection of religion or whatnot. People can be very stupid. I’m sure there would be children running around named ‘shithead’ or ‘retard’ or what ever else dumb, ill-fit people can come up with.

Here in Norway, we can’t name our children Adolf, or ‘Sir’ or anything looking like a title. I know a little boy with the name ‘Shield’ which is one of the odder names allowed. (it is in an old norse dialect which means ‘shield’.) But we couldn’t name our child ‘Mayor’ or ‘Knight’ or ‘President’ or ‘Minister’....... just not OK.

The Judge is right, but for the wrong reasons.
Here are examples from where I used to live in New Zealand (they FINALLY put a stop to dumb baby names, for the most part.) I used to process life insurance proposals and the young kids were coming up with some really inappropriate names for their kids.

Yes, I believe the judge was way out of bounds on this one. I would not go so far as to say it was an imposition of religion by a state as much as one by an individual who, as a representative of the state, should have known better than to apply personal standards.

My son and daughter-in-law named my grandson “Awesome”. They did give him two, shall we say normal, names as well and call him by one of those.

He is hoping that his son will grow up and play sports and thought it would be a good name for a football player.

His grandmother was appalled at first but has grown fond of it. She even found him a t-shirt that says “You can’t spell Awesome without ‘me’ in it”

And, it is certainly better than his first choice which was “Red-deth Danger Applegate (Last name here)”.

Hey, it’s better than “Placenta”! I know of someone who was named that.

The first answer makes sense.

It seems inappropriate for the judge to change the name. But at the same time I wish I had of gotten a free ticket like that. :-C

It makes me think about my own old name which I’m not saying here but that I legally changed when I got older. Ironically it had a version of “deth” in it also, but the first part was not red. It’s even more ironic how in high school I was nicknamed “megadeth” :-/ because I hated the real version and that I would actually become obsessed with suicide and I would start losing all my loved ones to the real death.

Psssht, artist formerly known as, can kiss my butt. :-)

I have to agree with @cazzie. Growing up is tough enough without having wear some idiots personal cause the rest of your life. Give the kid a break. The judge’s statement about Jesus was inappropriate but the rest of his rationale was valid.

I’m torn. The judge’s reasoning was faulty and prejudiced, being based on her own religion. For that reason the ruling was incorrect.

However, the name is inappropriate for a child, as that child, especially in that environment, will be subject to the most intense bullying imaginable, based solely on the parents’ choice of a ridiculously grandiose name that no child short of an actual messiah could hope to live up to.

The chosen name was wrong, and the judge’s ruling was wrong. I expect that the appeal will not so much overturn the verdict as “send it back for remand”, or in essence a do-over for the lower court to apply better reasoning to the same decision.

forgot to put the link… http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/02/new-zealand-updates-banned-baby-names-list/

Weird. My friend’s cousin’s name is Messiah, here in NY, not an issue.

Guilt enough to go around. The parents were way out of line in choosing that name, and the judge was right in changing it, but right for a way wrong reason.

Yeah, I don’t agree with this. For one thing, it’s difficult to prove that a name will have a negative effect on a child. One article I read indicated that the name “Messiah” is growing in popularity; if enough people survive with it as a name, who’s to say that it will create a more difficult life for the child? And I certainly don’t agree with the idea that the name can’t be used because it “belongs to Jesus”, especially since most of the people using this name are Christians themselves and are doing it in honor of Jesus. Makes little sense to me…

The name “Jesús” has centuries of history in Spanish-speaking countries and we know that it only means one thing. Is some Bible-belt judge going to outlaw that name now?

@Jaxk – I’m not sure that I agree with your sentence. There are any number of names (in the US at least) that are going to get a kid laughed and make him miserable in the future. Should those be outlawed as well?

For example, I think it would be hard for a kid to have a name like:
Poindexter
Theodore
Rufus
Mortimer
Algernon

and so on.

legislating names – even for the best of reasons – is a very dangerous game.

@DominicX You’re absolutely correct. That is what prompted me to ask this question even if my tongue was implanted firmly in my cheek !

@elbanditoroso

None of those are names that I would hange on a child but they don’t involk a violent reaction either. Everyone gets their name made fun of at some, no matter how commonplace. Parents can be blind to the impact and I wouldn’t have a problem putting some limitations on names that could put a child in danger. That of course is a fairly subjective decision.

BTW, I would add Festus to you list, but that’s just me.

@Jaxk – how could I ever have left Festus off the list. Forgive me.

And I didn’t even venture to girls’ names….

@elbanditoroso Where I live Rufus and Theodore are perfectly OK names, but we can’t name a baby Adolf. If a kid is named Poindexter, he is going to be called Dexter and THAT name is very cool right now. A child named Mortimer is going to be called Mort, and that is perfectly OK. Other names that are very common where I live; Magnus, Sonna, Cornelia, Sunniva, Lars, Odd, Even, (imagine having twins and naming them Odd and Even), Kjell (pronounced Shell and it is a boy’s name), Dag (which means Day and is a boys name)... we have a fair few names that sound strange to English speakers, but we can’t name a child here Mark (means worm) or Steve (means ‘stiff’ and is slag for an erection.)

Names SHOULD be checked for children by a third body. Children sometimes need protection from their crazy parents.

There is one thing that I forgot to add in my original post and that is the fact that the judge somehow seems to have this idea that she holds higher authority and sits at the right hand of God…
I humbly admit that I only serve God and wash His feet if He asks me, other than that I let Him make the decisions, He has not anointed me with any special instructions so I have to wonder what makes her so special. :-C

That is a big reason why I don’t belong to any religion, sometimes they just forget God’s words and make up their own as they go along, sigh.

@cazzie There are kids named Shithead. The pronunciation is along the lines of shu-teed.

I’m offended by the judge’s inappropriate comments, yet I’m delighted that this boy won’t need to go through childhood with that name.

@cazzie “Names SHOULD be checked for children by a third body. Children sometimes need protection from their crazy parents.”

Every state has access to an extensive database for vanity license tags. If some clever person tries to spell the eff-word in, say, Swahili, Bantu, or Scots Gaelic, the word gets flagged and rejected.

Doesn’t it seem like a simple thing for states to use the same database when they register birth certificates?

@SadieMartinPaul Back in my crazy days, I had a ‘66 pearlescent white Buick Riviera. I was amazed the California DMV let me have 2T SNOW as a license plate.