This one's personal. In 1980, when my husband and I chose to give our son a made up last name different than either of ours, the friendly baby-name-recording lady at the hospital refused to fill out the certificate, telling us she'd be back the next day after we thought it over. We prevailed.
So the new paper by UC Davis law professor Carlton F.W. Larson, "Naming Baby: The Constitutional Dimensions of Parental Naming Rights", holds particular interest. Here's Larson's bottom line:
The oddity introduced in this Article’s Introduction—the prohibition of “Lucía,” but the acceptance of “Adolf Hitler” as valid children’s names—demonstrates just how strange and unintuitive this area of law is. There are both needless prohibitions and seemingly gaping lacunae, both of which cry out for coherence and reform.
With respect to needless prohibitions, restrictions on surnames and diacritical marks could be eliminated through constitutional litigation. It is appalling that some American parents cannot legally name a child with the surname of a maternal grandmother or with the first names Lucía or José. If legislatures do not fix this problem, courts should. With respect to various gaps, legislatures, at minimum, should consider clarifying and specifying the content of state law with respect to parental naming rights and at least consider the possibility of additional, narrowly drawn restrictions.
It's a good read.
HT: Legal Blog Watch
