Swedish law also has plenty to say about first names. The tax authority can veto parents' choice of name for a new-born baby if officials decide the name could "cause trouble" for the child later in life.
They can also ban names if they 'have the character of a surname' - even though using surnames as given names is a common practice outside the Nordic region. While Wallenberg or Reinfeldt might jar as first names, many people elsewhere have taken to the practice. What, for instance, would the Swedish authorities have made of Jude Law's sons Rafferty and Finlay? Or Macaulay Culkin, Lennox Lewis, Mackenzie Crook and Fletcher Christian, for that matter?
Despite the questions over this part of the name law it is the mellannamn law that raises most objections.
People have complained that the law is applied unevenly, with rulings depending largely on the preferences of individual bureaucrats. For instance, a couple was initially banned from calling their daughter Metallica (a decision later overturned), authorities in another part of Sweden allowed a baby boy to be called Google. The law also brings problems for transgender people, as the rules make it hard to change the gender of forenames.
The problems with the law governing mellannamn were highlighted recently when a couple from southern Sweden said they would divorce if that's what it took to allow their son to bear both their surnames. Lars Jensen and Lina Wernström Jensen described the authorities' ruling that their son Aksel could not be named Aksel Wernström Jensen as long as they were married as "absolutely absurd".
That Hitler kid has some serious butt kickings coming to him when he gets older.
How could a parent named a child such a horrific name. I feel bad for the kid.
