There was a similar story in comp.risks (anyone remember that?) back in 1986. When ordering a custom plate, you could put down three choices. The guy applying could only think of two choices ("SAILING" and "BOATING"). If he couldn't get one of those, he didn't want a custom plate, so he put "NO PLATE" as the third choice. Of course that was the plate he got. He ended up getting 2500 parking tickets, since any car with no plate was marked on the ticket as "NO PLATE".
A journalist here in Australia just named her baby "Methamphetamine Rules" because she assumed it would be rejected and was writing a story trying to find out what the default assigned name was. Only it wasn't rejected and she received a birth certificate with that name.
> Surely this person is just some sort of attention seeker. Nobody is this dumb.
In some countries it does work this way.
Luckily for the kid, when you change your name in Australia you are issued an entirely new birth certificate (I know because I changed my name!) so this child won't go through life with this name on its birth certificate and then a "change of name" certificate like in some countries.
More generally though, dome countries have a list of permitted names and whatever the registrar writes down (which might not be what you asked for) is the child's name.
Most of the European countries that had such rules have relaxed or given them up, though they sometimes remain on the books to keep parents from doing this kind of thing, but they remain in some countries in other regions of the globe.
This "whatever the registrar writes down is authoritative" applied to immigrants to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century which is why there are many common names spelled differently (Schmidt, Shmitt, and so forth). Also applied to family names when they were made mandatory (Prussia in mid 19th century, Turkey in the 1920s). In this case they often simply made the decisions with no option to appeal, which you can see Jewish family names that are joke names made up and assigned by antisemitic officials. Most of those people's descendants now live in other countries where the meaning is thankfully lost.
Do you mean "they choose one for you" happens to be true? Does depending on that, or hoping what they choose is okay make her not dumb and not attention-seeking?
I used to think that way. Decades of experience have led me to conclude that there really are an incredibly large number of people who are that <pick your descriptor from among clueless, dumb, self-centered, delusional, …>
No joke, the mother of one of my friends changed her name to...just her first name. She eliminated her last name. This is also in Australia.
Not having a last name has caused her all kinds of problems. Australia may not officially require you to have a last name, but passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, utilities, etc., still require there to be something in that space. She kinda-sorta gets by using "[first name] [firstname]" or "[first name] NoLastName", but it is still a bureaucratic nightmare -- as I think anyone but her could have predicted.
Many countries don’t allow name changes at all, so if you are a named- hanged foreigner living in that country, a lot of systems won’t be able to handle you, and you’ll be asking for exceptions for your entire stay (not to mention needing to carry around your birth certificate, proof of name change, and translations).
And I think changing your maiden name in marriage is still common in the west, so many foreigners run into this in a country like China.
Many Indonesians don’t have last names, I wonder how immigration is handled. Wiki has a whole section on how other countries handle this, since Indonesia isn’t a small country:
In southern India it's common for the last name to simply be the father's name (but I do know one guy whose last name is his mother's name).
Like, my name could be "Foo", my father's name could be "Baz" so the given name field of the passport could be "Foo Baz", and the last name would be blank.
But the visa form for certain countries don't accept that, so they put in "LNU".
Anyway, these days people are more aware, so when applying for passport they specify the given name as "Foo", and the surname as "Baz" (parent's name), even though that's really not the surname.
I changed one of my cards to have just my surname on it, 'cuz I thought it looked cool, and there are a _lot_ of CC forms on the internet that don't like it.
> Under the rules, the registrar will not approve a name if it is offensive and not in the public interest. It also will not approve given names that are more than 50 characters, include symbols, or an official title or rank such as princess, Queen, or goddess.
Shame, it doesn't seem to violate policy. They should have been forced to do a full legal name change, and a welfare check on the other kids wouldn't be out of line either.
The articles I read about it suggested she had tried that. Agencies indicated that the registrar would provide a name in the event that the chosen one was rejected, but wouldn't tell her what that might be.
Do they only regulate names of children or of adults too? I don't it is limited to children. What business does the state have in deciding how they will address me?
RISKS-Digest is a valuable and venerable resource. I find it somewhat ironic that it seems not to have any specific preparation for transition or continuity.
That's a challenge for numerous projects, and I can think of several examples of projects, services, or other institutions which failed on the death, disability, or retirement of their founders. It's a highly foreseable risk.
My license plate is very similar to this, intended as a joke [I had to fight DMV for approval]. It has the additional advantage that no information about me pulls up when scanned/run through DMV records... intending to confuse [and often succeeding].
The occassional tow notice always elicits a chuckle — I no longer even respond to them. Citations/notices are few-and-far, as the authorities have made note to not use my lawful license plate as a default "no plate on vehicle" descriptor.
The full story with references: https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3/12#subj1