New Zealand Bans Weird Baby Names

Looks like certain celebrity families will have to avoid New Zealand the next time they're expecting another Seven Sirius or Moxie CrimeFighter. The NZ Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages has taken a heavy-handed approach to baby-naming, banning 89 names specifically and refusing to allow any names with non-hyphen punctuation.

The list of weird names for kids that are banned by New Zealand’s names registrar has grown to include Lucifer, Duke, Messiah and 89.

Also not approved: Bishop, Baron, General, Judge, King, Knight and Mr., names that were all said to be too similar to titles.

The letters, C, D, I and T were also rejected as first names, the Herald Sun says.

And three different sets of Kiwi parents wanted to name their children Lucifer, only to have the name choice nixed.

In 2008, New Zealand’s names registrar drew international attention when it approved such non-traditional names as Benson and Hedges for a set of twins, as well as the boys names of Violence and Number 16 Bus Shelter.

But New Zealand isn’t the only country to ban wacky names for kids, the Toronto Globe and Mail reports.

In Sweden, name choices are subject to a naming law. While Lego and Google have been approved as names for children, Superman, Metallica and Elvis, and the name Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, pronounced Albin, were not approved.

In 2007, a judge in the Dominican Republic submitted a proposal to ban names that are either confusing or gave no indication of gender, such as the names Qeurida Pina (Dear Pineapple) and Tonton Ruiz (Dummy Ruiz), according to the Globe and Mail.

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