Wednesday, September 05, 2007

The Name Game


A law proposed in the National Assembly of Venezuela will limit the choices of names which parents may give their new born children. The list includes 100 acceptable names.

The bill’s ambition, according to a draft submitted to municipal offices for review, is to “preserve the equilibrium and integral development of the child” by preventing parents from giving newborns names that expose them to ridicule or are “extravagant or hard to pronounce in the official language,” Spanish.

The bill also aims to prevent names that “generate doubts” about the bearer’s gender.


10 comments:

Unknown said...

You've got to be kidding!

Liz said...

I've stated my opinion else where... this is just another means for control. I agree that some names are just awful or crazy, but it is the right of the parents to name their kids!

Poorest people are the ones to be more affected by this. It's a Caribbean /Latin thing to have weird names. It's part of the culture and ethnicity.

Rita, can you imagine ME named "Beyoncé" or "Halle"? Nope! But the real ones, seem to be just perfect for their exotic names.

OTOH, this is just another smoke curtain, for us not to see the big picture: PERPETUAL REELECTION.

Liz

Rancher said...

Oh my God this is getting downright Orwellian. Control the language and you can control thought.

Brenda said...

Argentina did that under Peron and even our missionaries had to use names from the list. It makes for a good story today.

Jane said...

Talk about control! It breaks my heart.

Jackie said...

Too bizarre...there is a law here in Paraguay that a child cant have more than three middle names and no name can be vulgar. I learned that while getting Abbie's birth certificate. One hundred names is not a lot...seems like it will cause a lot of confusion in those Infant Circles they are starting.

MissKris said...

This is really scary stuff, these laws. When we had a huge influx of Russians and Romanians coming into our church right around the time of the Iron Curtain coming down, so to speak, some of the things they told us about life in their old countries was more than we could fathom. Ai yi yi...what is this world coming to besides the end?!? Welcome back, by the way...so sorry to hear about your mother-in-law. Hope all is under control as far as that's concerned.

marallyn ben moshe said...

are they nuts???sigh...the world is run by crazies...good to hear from you...stay safe...

Maggie Ann said...

That kind of control would crush the spirit wouldn't it. It would make me feel like the government owned us. We've got nastier issues in America though...like abortion.

Caraqueña said...

I wonder if Hugo and Iamadinnerjacket are on the 100-name list? I bet Maria Isabel isn't! lol