Name game a bit insane in Iceland

Here’s something you may have missed in the national news last week. It’s against the law in Iceland to name your baby girl Harriet.

You can name your female offspring Aagot, Baldey, Dogg or Eybjort. Frigg, Glodis, Jorlaug are OK, too. So is Vagna or Sigurfljoo.

The fracas over legal names in Iceland drew global attention when the country denied 10-year-old Harriet Cardew her passport renewal because her name doesn’t comply with Icelandic baby-naming laws. In Iceland there’s an approved list of 1,853 female names and 1,712 names for boys, according to a report by The Guardian.

Unless both parents are foreign, Icelandic rules stipulate that parents must submit their name choice to the national registry for approval within six months after the baby is born. The chosen name must meet requirements that include Icelandic grammatical endings, linguistic structure and orthography.

Harriet and her older brother, Duncan, were born in France, so their names weren’t officially approved by Iceland’s name committee. Their Icelandic passports up until this point simply listed them as “girl” and “boy,” but when Harriet’s passport renewal was denied, the family was unable to travel to France.

The family has appealed the ruling, and now there’s a global discussion about Iceland’s heavy-handed name laws. Harriet’s dad was quoted, saying he finds the name approval process absurd and “rather silly.” 

I have to agree. This is Nordic nonsense.

It’s pretty snooty of a rather remote country with just over 320,000 residents to get so high and mighty about names. All this from a culture where no one except native Icelanders can pronounce most things, such as popular destinations including Reykjavik, Akureyri, Myvatn, Vik i Myrdal and Isafjorour.

Most countries aren’t as strict as Iceland when it comes to names, but The Guardian noted a few exceptions.

In China, a couple who tried to use the @ symbol as a name were rejected. Sweden rejected a name request for “Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb-111163,” which the baby boy’s parents apparently pronounced as Albin. More Nordic nonsense.

A judge in the Dominican Republic submitted a proposal a few years ago to ban names that are confusing or don’t indicate gender. Among the names listed to prove his point was Querida Pina, which translates to “Dear Pineapple” in English.

Here in the United States we enjoy broad freedom in naming our children, much to the chagrin of schoolteachers and journalists who strive to spell these innovative names on a daily basis. Is it Courtney, Courtenay, Kortni, Cortnee or Chortnee? You get my drift.

Babycenter.com, a website that tracks unusual names in America, recently made a list of the most unusual names that are showing up on birth certificates these days.

For boys, names such as Espn, Google, Cajun and Mango were out-of-the-ordinary picks. Ajax, Apollo, Cheese, Daxx, Holmes, Hurricane, Kazz, Kodiak, Panda, Stetson and Zion were other names topping the unusual list. 

Odd names for girls recently have been Vanille, Couture and J’Adore. Add Blip, Blue, Chevy, Fairy, Feline, Harlowe, Kinzly, Kalliope, Kiwi, Nyx, Tulip and Ziggo to the list.

And we thought Frank Zappa was bonkers when he named his daughter Moon Unit in the psychedelic ’60s. Turns out he was just ahead of his time.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.