Countries are inconsistent in what names they do and do not accept.

Want a name that is offensive in your language? Your country probably won't let you do that, but some other one might, and yours still needs to accept that name as valid.

You can't just go to another country and change your name there, but if you have dual citizenship, you can usually change it in either one, and the other one needs to respect that.

I had a former coworker who had just (legally) changed his entire name in order to fully separate himself from his family when he started with the company. (This was in the US.) It made the onboarding kind of weird, because he originally gave us one name but then when he started had an entirely different one.

You sure can! But that doesn't mean it won't cause you problems.

For example, if you're male, and decide to change your name to Sarah, you totally can - but don't be surprised when people assume you're a woman.

And there are many countries, of which you are unaware, that do have pretty strict laws about what you are and aren't allowed to name your children. Iceland is the one that springs to mind off the top of my head. As I recall, Germany also has some limitations.

I think you misread my comment? I said:

> You can't, in any country I'm aware of, choose absolutely any name you want.

Like in Germany can you name your kid "The Holocaust Didn't Happen"? No right?

You're right. I absolutely did misread your comment. That's what I get for trying to read on a single cup of coffee.

In the US, I'm not sure there are any laws about what you can be named. I'm not a lawyer though.

I don't think you can name your kid $()*&@Q%&

Well, Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, so I don't know.

People's own opinions about what their name is is not a "non-issue", shitty-ass governments or not. Declaring a people's opinions about names stupid and irrelevant (or even illegal) is one of the many ways majorities oppress or even commit slow genocide against minorities.

> Declaring a people's opinions about names stupid and irrelevant (or even illegal) is one of the many ways majorities oppress or even commit slow genocide against minorities.

My point was governments do this all the time and it is a far cry from fascism. Elsewhere in the thread, it is mentioned that often times you have to compromise when registering a name in a different country (for instance, if the language does not contain a phoneme used in your name). In that case, you have to conform to the country's culture and language. Under that lens, banning names that violate cultural norms is not so crazy.

There are reasonable regulations and unreasonable regulation. The idea that since some regulation exist, it would be totally the allow any other rule is absurd.

Yes, people (specifically women) with strong opinion on the suffix of their name exist and proper solution of government is to butt off that decision. This is no the norm worth keeping by force.

The relevant laws in many Western countries today exist so that children don't get saddled with patently stupid names by their parents (see also: Elon Musk and his kids).