According to the act (which I will henceforth refer to as Bob), names must not imply rank, resemble official titles or cause undue offence. Perhaps my offence at J'Zayden is not undue enough.
You are allowed only 99 characters in your name (that includes first, middle and surname) and use of symbols is not allowed so you couldn't use / in your child's name, but you could apparently call him or her Backslash.
"Come on, Backslash. If you don't eat up your greens, you won't get any jelly. And stop flicking peas at Younique."
It follows that & would not be allowed but Ampersand would. Percentage is in, % is out.
The most commonly disallowed name for 2015 was Messiah.
It was followed by King, Royal, Prince Royale and Empress. Some of these are permissible as second names.
They can even be unofficially used as first names but they cannot appear on official documents such as passports.
Royaal was disallowed despite its attempt at disguise. So were Sarjant, Christ and Suprintedent (sic).
According to New Zealand's registrar-general of births, deaths and marriages, J'Zayden Blimp ... sorry, I got distracted ... Jeff Montgomery, his office used Bob to reject a total of 49 names last year.
I feel the bogan list has better offerings than the banned list. What's not to like about Aryan, Daxon, Zabryn and Jathon?
"Hello, doctor. We're a little worried about Jathon'th lithp."
Here are some other offerings from the girls' top 10: Beautiful, Braelyn, Cheryldine, D'Nell, Ever, Enivid, Kyly, McKyla.
Celebrity baby names offer more surprises. Pilot Inspektor, Egypt, Audio Science, Buddy Bear, Princess Tiaamii, Sage Moonblood, Sparrow James Midnight, Kyd Miller Duchovny, Moxie CrimeFighter and Tu Morrow are all real baby names chosen by celebrities. Frank Zappa's Moon Unit begins to fade into obscurity.
So far, I have avoided felicitous names.
How about these splendid combinations: Joseph Alberic Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes and Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde? Or the fictional creation, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock.
The shortest name I know of - it's from outside New Zealand - is J. It wasn't allowed by the authorities who said they had to call him Jae. The parents got their own back by still calling him J. A British baby possibly holds the record for the longest name. The parents are ardent boxing fans so used as many famous boxers as they could when they named their child Autumn Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jeffries Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Foreman Brown.
My guess is that even the parents find that a bit of a mouthful and just call her Bob for short.
- Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
