RE: Norway - go to jail for naming baby illegal [CNN]
-----Original Message----- From: Jim Choate [SMTP:ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com] Sent: Thursday, December 24, 1998 4:43 PM To: cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com Subject: Norway - go to jail for naming baby illegal [CNN]
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X-within-URL: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9812/23/BC-Norway-NameLaws.ap/
Mother of 14 jailed for violating Norway's baby-name law
December 23, 1998 Web posted at: 9:52 AM EST (1452 GMT)
OSLO, Norway (AP) -- A mother of 14 was jailed this week because she refused to change the name she picked for her young son, even though that violated Norway's name law.
Kirsti Larsen, 46, told the Verdens Gang newspaper that she named her son Gesher after she dreamed the child should be named "bridge." Gesher means bridge in Hebrew.
Norway has strict laws regulating names, including lists of acceptable first and last names. In 1995, Larsen tried to register her son's name as Gesher at her local county office, which rejected the choice as illegal.
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[Trei, Peter] This is the case in many countries - Germany and France for two. In Iceland, immigrants are required to change their names to Norse ones as part of the citizenship process. Peter Trei
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Icelandic last names, and old Norse last names in general, change, algorithimically, every generation. Your "last" name, if male, is your father's first name with "son" after it. If you're female it's your mother's first name, with, I believe "dottir" (daughter) after it. So, if your parents are Eric (say :-)), and, um, Helga, and you're male and your name is Lief, your name would be (oddly enough) Lief Ericsson. If you're female, and your name is, oh, Greta, (I don't know many female Norse names, and that's probably not one, Miss Garbo to the contrary) then your name would be Greta Helgasdottir, or something like that. Icelanders on the list will correct the specifics, of course. The price of error is bandwidth, and all that, but you get the idea. So, no matter who your are, if you're to become an Icelandic citizen, your last name changes. Mine, since my family's Fresian, would change from "Hettinga" ("guy who lives on a hill", which almost everyone did, or they lived in a swamp :-)), to "Ralphson", which, fortunately, is almost passable Icelandic. Actually, Frisians, the bad guys in Beowulf, could almost pass for Norse in general, as anyone who's met me might testify. Think of it as an anonymous renamer? :-). Cheers, Robert Hettinga -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 iQEVAwUBNoxD0MUCGwxmWcHhAQG3SQf/dpUEFsoxvfkwROqxnig9qR7+k73AFTR+ 8pXtRfxwUjpDjO72xmHOUerC9xdHBjG2pYJKcsuq13iq+DNlYRTuOIBvWf4EJd0d G82aTtlAvS5KwmTGyTzJPepVlXuaX+Aimb3aBEUYwZrssLbaCAMgtv+GEf6f1URy vifxjZHYa/+2Vi/VOQzLIuzpBjs2NFmSgU4vqdz6hKBPM7KHQiedIcvC/aUxonLH wqNqOtQJuwwuPUcxJElh1rj+9xlhqT2DiLQe3cq3p/JYCr3NR3seqk6OqNs4pCVp 5aww4TaiEvGips+rFvPcQPLHDdfTY+z8fw39m9s2rGlJ4I7LYu570w== =M3Rr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
At 5:59 PM -0800 12/31/98, Reeza! wrote:
THAT is _almost_ understandable. You say that Iceland requires immigrants to change their names to Norse ones, you didn't say to Norse ones on the approved list. or Norse ones avoiding those on the disapproved list. Does Iceland have the same "children who are born here are Icelandic citizens, regardless of the nationality of the parents" provision of the US constitution?
Is that written into the Constitution? I wasn't aware of that. If so, I will have learned something new tonight, perhaps the last major new thing I learn in 1998. There is talk of changing this law (or, I suppose, item in the C.) which allows and even encourages pregnant Mexicans and Salvadorans and Guatemalans to sneak into the U.S. just in time to have their babies in an American hospital, thus making the children American citizens (and mustn't separate mother from child, right?). Israel of course has laws allowing anyone born of a Jewish mother to "return" to Israel...never mind that they may have essentially no genetic content of any ancestor who ever lived in Palestine, even the Palestine of 3500 years ago. Ireland has a fairly new law which allows anyone with any Irish born grandparents or parents to get Irish citizenship. (Both Israel and Ireland, and presumably other places, would like to encourage wealthy Americans to relocate.)
About the only place I can think of where prohibiting certain names might- might be justifiable, is in countries where the names of certain criminals are associated with crimes of such heinous magnitude that it would create an emotional burden the viable tissue mass would never be able to overcome. 'Adolf Hitler' Xxxxxx, 'Charles Manson' Yyyyyy, or 'Hannibal Lector' Zzzzz, (heh) for example. It's just another case of jingoism (maintaining their culture re: populace naming conventions) and religious persecution (the babies name is hebrew, the mother of 10 claims christianity for her own),,,
It is not the function of a legitimate government to pass laws to stop "emotional burdens" on children. If it were, then various religions which expose the children of practicitioners to ridicule would be candidates for banning. As with so many things, Reeza!!, you need to carefully think about these political issues. Frankly, from the views you often express, I wonder why you support freely available unbreakable and untraceable communications. --Tim May We would go to their homes, and we'd kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments.
participants (3)
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Robert Hettinga -
Tim May -
Trei, Peter