- Dec 1, 2019
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It may depend on the country you live in. I mean a name like "X Æ A-12" has the advantage of informing institutions about who should not have kids but otherwise is just assholery by the parents, agreed. (Though, if you are referring to the famous story of "Le-a", pronounced "Ledasha" because of the dash, that has been debunked IIRC)Also insane names. Like, who in the right mind would call their child something that is spelled with an em dash (look it up...), squidward (yes, a guy actually tried) or Paris. And yet alas they do.
Names are just as bad as dates really.
On the other hand you have countries where there is a list of approved first names and there is no way to get a different one, not even a different spelling. There are countries which do not regulate that much by law but you have to have a certain spelling just because the language has a perfect spelling-pronunciation connection. Some allow for names recognized in other countries others don't.
More pertinent to the discussion here, until quite recently German law included that any kid must have at least one given name from which the gender is recognizable to normal German people - so there is one name which is not unisex, not from a different culture, etc. Which is why many decendants from migrants have a seemingly random assortment of letters as a name with one sore thing sticking out like "Mologuludolo Kurt Malalalalobombo" - but then the Kurt will normally not be used except for official papers (although I know one guy who wants his "Karl" to be used together with the rest of his definitely-not-European-at-all name). However, this law has been canceled due to amongst other things precisely the problem we have here: what is a clearly male name and who is to decide? Northerners have at least in part other names than southerners, so everybody around Hamburg would know whether the Frisian name "Onne" is male or female - but nobody around Munich would even recognize that it's a name.