From: Julian Bradfield (jcb+unicode@inf.ed.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Apr 22 2009 - 08:08:11 CDT
>On 2009-04-22, at 16:44, Julian Bradfield wrote:
>> In the UK, at least, you can change your name to amything you like.
[..]
>I would be extremely surprised if there are no limitations on what one
>might choose for a name change: they would be the same as those for
>parents registering a child's name. For instance, the registry
>wouldn't allow the name “Dirty Bastard”.
Your surprise is misplaced. (It's also, incidentally, not at all clear
in England that the Registrar of Births has the ability to refuse the
parents' choice of name, though they may try to do so. Then it comes
down to whether the parents have sufficiently deep pockets to take the
Registrar to court. Anyway, a birth registration need not include a
name at all, though that would make life difficult for the child later on.)
As for adult names, there is no register, so there is no one who can
refuse.
There are various ways of getting state acknowledgment for a change of
name, and in these cases the responsible person may decline to give
such recognition (as has happened on at least one occasion); but that
doesn't affect the validity of the name change, it only makes your
life a bit harder when it comes to implementing it.
-- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Apr 22 2009 - 08:12:11 CDT