Iceland teen known legally as ‘girl’ fights to get her name back

New York Daily News ^

[yarddog]

I used to know a guy named Mathis Mathis.

There was also a girl in my high school class named Glenda Butts. She was really pretty and you guessed it she had a nice derriere. My best friend had a real crush on her.

I ran into her a few years ago and caught up on a lot of our old school mates as she was one of the few to stay in that town.

[yarddog]

I bet I have known a dozen “Andy Andersons” and a half dozen “Dusty Rhoads”.

[jjotto]

I once dated a girl named Fonda Dicks. She is still listed in Iowa High School Girls Basketball records.

[yarddog]

I used to work with a guy whose last name was “Dicks”. That one is just a little too easy and there are a surprising number of people with that last name.

Now if I was Fonda, I would sue my parents and change my name, that is unless she really was unusually Fonda Dicks.

[jjotto]

Very conservative girl, very conservative family. They had no clue.

[SparkyBass]

I know a guy named Elias Elias.
His father is Barry Elias.
His father is Elias Elias.
His father is Barry Elias....
and so goes the naming for every generations’ eldest son as far back as he can remember.
they are Romanian... don’t know if that culture has anything to do with it...

[RegulatorCountry]

I had a much older second cousin now passed away with an unusual name. I always knew him as P.C. as did everyone else. It was only at his funeral that most outside his immediate family learned the given names for which those initials stood. He hated them, even his headstone reads “P.C.” instead of his full name.

It was Physics Columbus.

[Fiji Hill]

Which of the 14 different spellings of ‘Katelyn’ will you declare correct?

That sounds like two names made into one. Best to go with Kate Lynn.

[Fiji Hill]

Phillipe is also spelled Phillippe, Philip, and some other obscure ways ~ they are all correct. The differences arise out of history and containing language.

You left out Phillip.

[William Tell]

I knew an “Andrew A. Andrews” years ago. I’ll let you guess what the “A.” stood for.

[roadcat]

I once dated a girl named Fonda Dicks. She is still listed in Iowa High School Girls Basketball records.

I'm imagining Bart Simpson calling a bar to have her paged! I know these names are for real and do get handed out to unfortunate kids. When I was a kid my next-door neighbor named their daughter Uranus Burns. Black family, the girls were named after planets like Marvenus (another daughter), while the boys had normal boy names.

[Thebaddog]

Great insight. Thanks.

[Cronos]

the law seems to make some sense. from the article
choices like Cara, Carolina, Cesil, and Christa have been rejected outright because the letter "c'' is not part of Iceland's 32-letter alphabet.

She pointed to "Satania" as one unacceptable case because it was deemed too close to "Satan."

[Cronos]

Actually The criterion for acceptance of names is whether or not they can be easily incorporated into the Icelandic language. First, they must contain only letters found in the Icelandic alphabet and second, they must be able to be declined (that is, modified according to their grammatical case).

unlike English, most indo-european languages have declination. So, if you are saying, for instance in Polish, I am with Jan, it becomes "jestem u Jana" and thanks to Jan becomes "dzięki Janowi" etc

you can read more at icelandreview

The Icelandic Naming Committee has approved the first names Eberg, Tristana, Asía and Rikharður, on the grounds that they can be grammatically conjugated in the possessive case in Icelandic. It has also approved the middle name Gilsfjörð.

[Cronos]

And this country went bankrupt recently. Why is there a need for such a list when you’re friggin broke?

Iceland is a country of 300,000 people -- smaller than many US cities

it's had this law for a long time, way before being broke.

it has a birth rate of approximately 4,000 per year

it has a language that has declinations (see my post above)

So it made logical sense when they put in this law years ago that the accepted list of names, that the name can be declined grammatically

Let me try and explain it this way -- Ive been learning Polish since I got here, so will use it as an example -- if you want to say in English Veronica's book or Jack's book, you put the "'s"

But in Polish and in other Indo-european languages like Icelandic, you have to decline, i.e. change the base word to signify this

so you'd say "book Veronicy" or "book Jacka" -- the declination changes if it is masculine or feminine -- for feminine the word normally in the un-declined form ends in "a" or a softened letter and when you are putting "possession" you change that to "y".

For Male you add an "a"

That's a simplification of the rules, but you get what I mean