Belle Taylor: Playing the baby name game

Imagine welcoming the arrival of a perfect little baby, staring down at it lovingly and thinking: “I’m going to call you Sativa.”

Yes Sativa, as in the plant, Cannabis sativa. Seems unlikely, but that’s exactly what three sets of new parents in New Zealand tried to do last year. Luckily for the would-be Sativas, their folks were stopped by the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (if you’re picturing a bunch of people in black suits and bulletproof vests bursting into maternity wards saying “That name is NOT choice bro”, then same), who have taken on the important task of not letting Kiwis name their kids dumb stuff.

The list of names that were rejected by New Zealand last year was recently released and it makes for quite the roll call. Topping the list was King, requested by 11 sets of parents. Three different families tried and failed to name their children Kyng, Kingz and Kingi.

There were 10 requests for Prince and four for Princess. Two families went rogue and requested Prinz and Prynce. Three families literally went for Rogue.

Also on the list: Magesty (yes, that was the spelling), Major, Messiah and Mighty. Roil, Royal, Royallty, Crown and Crownos. Duke, Juke, Solvreign and for one particularly big Enid Blyton fan: Fanny.

Some of these parents need to lay off the Sativa.

Australian authorities don’t release such a list, but we do have 89 banned names. I am unsure if anyone has actually attempted to name their offspring Bonghead, S...head, G-Bang, iMac or Scrotum — all of which are among the 89 banned Australian names. But I sincerely hope no one is out there crocheting a Bonghead baby blanket because that’s going to be a waste of yarn.

Naming a child is fraught everywhere, it seems. A recent survey by UK website Gransnet found one in five grandparents hated their grandchild’s name. I’m surprised it’s only one in five considering the list they then gave of their most disliked monikers. You would think it would be full of the type of names on the New Zealand banned list, but instead the names they can’t stand sound like any kindergarten roll call: Aurora, Charlotte, Elijah, Finn, Jack, Lindsay, Noah, Sally and Tabitha. These grandparents don’t know how good they got it. The parents need to try a little reverse psychology. Tell Nan and Pop you’re naming the kid Solvreign and then at the last minute: “Surprise! We settled on Jack.” They’ll be thrilled.

I learnt the hard way that you should never reveal the potential name of a child before you have inked it on the birth certificate. Not long after discovering I was pregnant with my son, my partner and I settled on the perfect name: Julian. My dad reacted as if we were naming him Humperdinkle Trusiwotsit. “You can’t name him that Belle!” he moaned. And then would call me at odd hours to shout new, increasingly weird, suggestions down the phone, like: “Dusty! We can give him a tiny neck tattoo!” (It was 2017, Dustin Martin was everywhere.) We relented, Julian was off the list (to any Julians out there: you have a lovely name. To any Humperdinkle Trusiwotsits out there: good luck with that).

Mum was no help either. After 40 plus years of teaching, she would look through my list muttering things like, “Won’t sit on the mat . . . runs with scissors . . . always with the runny nose . . . STOP rocking on that chair!” until she entered some sort of trance and I had to gently lead her to a chair with a nice cup of tea and say something soothing like: “It’s OK, you’re not on playground duty today.”

Of course, the grandparents don’t get the final say. Parents should be able to name their kid whatever they like. But perhaps stay away from royal titles, military ranks, insults and slang for genitalia. And whatever you do, don’t tell the grandparents.