Are There Laws about What You Can Name Your Baby in South Dakota?
Hello my name is.....
The name you're given as a child is a pretty important thing. Fortunately, my parents didn't stick me with something awful when I was born.
In school, I grew up knowing a young girl named Bertha, and needless to say, Bertha caught a fair amount of crap from the other kids growing up after being blessed with that gem of a name. The name Bertha wasn't even remotely contemporary back in the early 70s, and it still hasn't made a resurgence yet today.
Even though many older sounding names have become quite popular once again. Names like Henry, Evelyn, Hazel, Leo, and Eleanor are some of the more popular baby names right now.
When it comes to what South Dakota parents like to name their kids, the website Babynames.com claims these are the top four most popular names for boys and girls in the Rushmore state at the moment.
For boys its...
Oliver, Liam, Henry, and Maverick. (Gee, I wonder if the new Top Gun movie had anything to do with that?)
The most common names for girls in South Dakota at this time are...
Harper, Charlotte, Amelia, and Ella.
These days you can pretty much name your child anything, and believe me, a lot of people do. I've heard talk about parents that have named their kids after numerical digits.
When it comes to names for children, one thing that is generally not allowed in most states, according to the website The Bump, is naming your child after a special character. Special characters are something that is not considered a number or a letter. So, basically you are prohibited from naming your child after a punctuation mark or some type of symbol in most every state.
Although, Minnesota must not be one of those states. I'm guessing you remember back in 1993 when the artist formally known as Prince changed his name to a symbol for a brief period of time? That seemed to fly back in the day, and it certainly created quite a buzz in the music and entertainment world.
Parents here in the Rushmore State appear to have tremendous freedom when it comes to selecting a name for their child. However, if you're compelled to name your baby by using some form of punctuation, you're limited to spaces, hyphens, and apostrophes here in South Dakota, according to the folks at The Bump.
You'll also need to keep that name for your baby clean.
Offensive names, derogatory terms, and forms of obscenity are restricted as well in South Dakota.
The website US Birth Certificates lists a handful of names that were ruled illegal by courts in most states. Some of those names include:
- Jesus Christ
- Adolf Hitler
- Santa Claus
- King
- Queen
- Messiah
- Majesty
If you're a big James Bond fan, be glad you don't live in the country of Malaysia. You're prohibited from naming your child 007 there. Do they have something against Bond in Malaysia?
You can check out the US Birth Certificates complete list of banned baby names here.
Source: Babynames.com/The Bump/US Birth Certificates