General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Should new parents have to chose baby names from an approved government list? [View all]OldEurope
(1,273 posts)In Germany there is no list of approved names. But there are rules for German citizens. The name must not be offensive or harmful to the child, so you cannot chose Superman or Piggy or Diaper or Cauliflower as a name. Though some nouns are actually names, especially flowers like Iris or Rose. You can chose phantasy words or names from an other language, like Frodo or Andrea for your son. Sometimes when the gender is not clear (for example in case of Andrea for a boy which is normal in Italy, but not in Germany - here it is considered female) you have to give the child a second name to make clear. Which is IMHO discriminatory to those who were born with unclear sexual characteristics. On the other other side: a boy named Andrea could be bullied badly when the other children make fun of his "girls" name.
The rules do not apply to foreign citizens living in Germany. It is up to the registrar to decide whether the choice of the parents is accepted or not and the parents can bring evidence that the name already existed.
Some cases were brought to court when the parents did not want to accept the decision of the registrar and the frame got widened up. So you can name your daughter Bavaria (would not recommend that, because here a Bavaria is considered pejoratively a very, very big woman with baroque physique http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Bavaria_2.jpg&filetimestamp=20060502120521 ) In most cases the registrar was acknowledged.
In one case the court did not allow the parents to give their child twelve names, ten of which were at least unusual, they had to constrain to 6 and at least one of them had to be a name that allowed to identify as male or female.