Thursday 18 December 2008

What's in a name?

The concluding part to a more depressing story, read more here

"Is this the most inappropriate – or unfair – naming of children you have heard of? There was, of course, the case in July this year of a nine-year-old girl from New Zealand whose parents called her Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. A lawyer acting for the girl claimed she was so embarrassed she told friends her name was "K" instead.
She was placed into court guardianship so her name could be changed after judge Rob Murfit ruled it had set her up with a "social disability and handicap".
He went on to signal his concern about other names given to children, including Violence, Midnight Chardonnay and Number 16 Bus Shelter. There was a set of twins named Benson and Hedges."

This made me LOL, I thought I was bad, although my cousin is worse calling his girls India followed by twins Masie and Minnie. (yep even more girls) what is it with us and names.
In stark contrast Emin's family rotate a handful of names over and over again, first and last names are interchangeable and in some case repeated, it is quite possible in Cyprus to have a child called Mehmet Mehmet! Emin recently spent 3 days obtaining his ID card over in Cyprus they refused to allow him to have Hassan insisting it was a corrupted form of Hasan so his name is now different there from here.
To get the card he had to track down his parents birth certificates and marriage certificate, not easy as the first question he was asked was his parents DOB, he did not know his mothers! eventually they tracked her down, she was born in 1928 only 6 years after my Gran, how weird is that? He has skipped a whole generation. Which is more understandable when you know that he was from his fathers second marriage.
His father walked away from his first marriage and refused all contact with them again, leaving some very confused and damaged children behind, he went back to his village and married Emin's mother telling her they were going to England for their Honeymoon, they never went back. Not the foundations for the happiest of relationships, or childhoods I suspect.

1 comment:

La Belette Rouge said...

My father chose a name for me that he thought was not serious. He said that if I ever did anything serious with my life I could go by my middle name. I like by name but I have to admit that I resent him giving me a name that he thought precluded me from gravitas.