'Royal' baby names rejected in New Zealand

When it comes to baby names, Royal and King won't get the seal of approval. Photo / Getty

If you like the idea of naming your baby Royal, you might be out of luck.

According to the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs, changing the spelling won't help you either.

In the list of names rejected by the department, Royal was declined four times last year, Royale was rejected three times, and even the more inventive spellings Royahl and Royaal were turned down too.

However, the name Messiah was the moniker most often rejected by the department, with seven people who requested the name being turned down last year.

While there is no list of "banned" names, Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Jeff Montgomery, says decisions are made on a name-by-name basis.

The top three reasons for a name being turned down are causing offence, being too long, or resembling a title or rank.

Also on the 2015 rejected list was King, declined five times, Prince, three times, while Princess, Empress, Sir, Christ, Justyce and Suprintedent where all relegated to the 'no' list too.

If a name does happen to be turned down, the family are given a chance to explain their reasoning behind the choice.

According to department stats, the number of names being declined is very small. There are about 60,000 babies born each year, and 49 names were rejected in 2015.

Some of the wackier name requests to end up on the declined list last year included Rogue, one totally blank submission, four names with symbols in them, and MMMR - a Mongrel Mob acronym.

- nzherald.co.nz