Posted on 07/01/2014 8:30:42 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Authorities reluctant to renew passport of Harriet, 10, as name is not on approved list of 3,565
You can be Aagot, Arney or Ásfríður; Baldey, Bebba or Brá. Dögg, Dimmblá, Etna and Eybjört are fine; likewise Frigg, Glódís, Hörn and Ingunn. Jórlaug works OK, as do Obba, Sigurfljóð, Úranía and – should you choose – Vagna.
But you cannot, as a girl in Iceland, be called Harriet.
"The whole situation," said Tristan Cardew, with very British understatement, "is really rather silly."
With his Icelandic wife Kristin, Cardew is appealing against a decision by the National Registry in Reykjavik not to renew their 10-year-old daughter Harriet's passport on the grounds that it does not recognise her first name.
Since the registry does not recognise the name of Harriet's 12-year-old brother Duncan either, the two children have until this year travelled on passports identifying them as Stúlka and Drengur Cardew: Girl and Boy Cardew.
"But this time, the authorities have decided to apply the letter of the law," Cardew, a British-born cook who moved to Iceland 14 years ago, told the Guardian. "And that says no official document will be issued to people who do not bear an approved Icelandic name."
The Cardews could get round Harriet's problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. Photograph: Tristan Cardew The impasse meant the family, from Kópavogur, risked missing their holiday in France next week until they applied to the British embassy for an emergency UK passport, which should now allow them to leave.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Talk about control!
Ozzie?
The icelandic gubment approaches the level of bizarre that exists in Islamic “republics”
always important for the government to control everything
Approved names? Iceland is an Orwellian cesspit
Thanks to this, I shall complain a wee bit less about bureaucracy here in the US (even the DPS offices).
Well, does that preclude immigration/naturalization?
(And wouldn't a name-change also be an official document, which would have to be issued to someone who wanted to get an approved name?)
Good grief. I didn’t realize Icelanders had “the tendency”.
/johnny
(Iceland is way behind their Nordic cousins in national-suicide-by-Muslim-migration, but I believe they have started taking the poison.)
My Great-great-great Uncle, Chrispi Anus, might have thought something along these lines was a good idea.
She looks like a young “shield maiden”. She needs to go convince these buffoons that Harriet is a good name.
In that case, I regret posting it.
Worry not, I shall still vent invective on our feckless petty bureaucrats, but I shall do so with a grain of gratitude that they are not as obtuse as those in Iceland.
Many countries including Germany and Mexico have such laws.
Scratch Harriet...
wonder if Ozzie is on the approved list of boys names...?
According to this wiki entry about Iceland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland
Islam constitutes 0.26% of the affiliated faiths there out of a total population on approximately 325,000. That makes for about 845 of them.
Ed McDonnough: I’m not gonna live this way, Hi! It just ain’t family life!
H.I.: Well... it ain’t “Ozzie and Harriet.”
-Raising Arizona (1987)
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