Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 12:01:36 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Regulated names (was: Crazy Laws) Message-ID: <36822D20.DCF23B22@uk.radan.com> References: <368102F5.C90B94D5@uk.radan.com> <19981224102628.S12346@freebie.lemis.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Greg Lehey wrote: > > On Wednesday, 23 December 1998 at 14:49:25 +0000, Mark Ovens wrote: > > I always thought Scandinavia was a free and easy-going place. > > I'm not so sure after I spotted this on Teletext... > > > > MOTHER JAILED OVER SON'S NAME > > > > "A mother of 14 children was jailed for 2 days > > because she refused to change the name she picked > > for her young son. > > > > Norway has strict laws regulating names, including > > lists of acceptable first and last names. > > > > Kirsti Larsen, 46, said she named her son Gesher > > after she dreamed the child should be named Bridge > > - gesher means bridge in Hebrew." > > Germany has strict laws on this, too. They also have strict laws on > surnames, and refused to allow my wife (French) to adopt my surname > when we married, claiming that the French would not allow it. My wife > got an official statement to the contrary from the French Embassy, but > they didn't accept that. > That is unbelievable. To impose such restrictions on their own citizens seems authoritarian enough, but to extend it to foreign nationals (I assume neither of you have dual nationality), and on the grounds that another country might object, is really OTT. Anyway, is your surname not of French origin (Le Hey)?. > My daughter was born in Germany, though she's not a German national, > and I was damned if I was going to let them dictate her name. > Unfortunately, it turned out that the name we chose was on their list. > > Greg > -- > See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers > finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key -- Trust the computer industry to shorten Year 2000 to Y2K. It was this thinking that caused the problem in the first place. Mark Ovens, CNC Applications Engineer, Radan Computational Ltd Sheet Metal CAD/CAM Solutions mailto:marko@uk.radan.com http://www.radan.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?36822D20.DCF23B22>