You can't name your baby with a backslash

The backslash symbol is banned from baby names. Photo / Thinkstock

It might be a commonly used symbol due to the internet, but you can't use a backslash to name your kid.

Two New Zealanders have recently tried to do just that, applying to register their child's name with a backslash separating two names.

These backslashed names are just some of the names rejected in the last six months by Births, Deaths and Marriages.

Others recently rejected include Majesty, King, Knight, Princess and Justice, while stand alone letters that appear to be initials are also not on.

Parents who wanted to name their kids A.J, MC, VI, L B and C J have been knocked back.

These recently refused names join other obscure labels including Anal, V8, 89, Mafia No Fear, Lucifer, full stop and *, on the list of rejected names since 2001.

The Department of Internal Affairs introduced rules governing acceptable names in New Zealand in 1995.

These rules state you cannot name your child anything that causes offence to a reasonable person, cannot be unreasonably long and should not without adequate justification include an official title or rank.

In 2008, a New Zealand court ruled a nine-year-old girl named Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii be placed in the guardianship of the court until she was renamed because she risked becoming a target of bullying.

In 2007, a New Zealand couple tried to name their child 4Real Superman but were turned down because it contained a digit.

They settled instead for just Superman and continued to call the child 4Real unofficially.

- AAP