New Zealanders can't name their kids Duke

...nor can they give their kids a number of other unusual names.



http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/20/new-zealand-bans-weird-baby-names/



Some of these I can sort of undersand. I mean, giving your kid a title for a name could lead to some confusion later in life. And other names seem to be made up by idiotic parents who aren't giving any thought to the fact that their babies aren't cute little toys-- they're people who are going to have to accept their names as a part of their identity. The long name that is pronounced Albin could be looked at as a comment on pronunciation, which could be looked at as intellectual. But who wants to be their parents' intellectual statement?

I'm not saying that I agree with most of the banned names here, but I definitely think that there are a lot of dumb people out there who should not be having kids. So long as a parent can tell their kid why they lovingly and thoughtfully (and I mean for real) chose the name Lucifer or Metallica, and the kid can be proud of it, I can deal with it.

But once you start banning dumb things, when do you stop?