I was once subjected to the song “A boy named Sue” by Johnny Cash after making the mistake of riding in Billy Joe Mills' van; for those of you who know Billy…perhaps the debris, litter, and rotting food should have been an indicator for me not to enter the vehicle. The song is about a boy whose mean-spirited father named him “Sue” and the strife the boy suffered in his life because of the name.

But what’s really in a name? Did the boy named “Sue” really have name-related problems in his life? According to a NYT article today, the boy named “Sue” shouldn’t have had a problem in life because of his name. The NYT author argues that names *generally* do not have a bearing on a person’s success or failure in life. Previous studies showed that children with unusual names did more poorly in school and were more emotionally disturbed than their common-named peers. This conclusion was debunked recently when studies that controlled for race and ethnicity showed that children with uncommon names performed as well as their peers. The poor test scores and the emotional disturbances were more likely related to poverty or less-educated parents whose poor-parenting skills would allow them to select odd names such as “Ima Pigg” or “Lotta Beer” for their children...

While reading the NYT article, I was reminded of the baby-name laws in Germany. Germans must name their children a name that clearly identifies the child’s gender—feminine names for girls and masculine names for boys. The name must also not be offensive, derogatory, or cause the child harm in any way. There are also a set of names that are banned, such as Hitler and Osama (as in, Osama bin Laden). Sweden and Denmark have similar legislation. France passed a naming-conventional law in the 1800s that restricted parents to names on a pre-approved list; that law was rescinded in 1993. In 2007, however, Venezuela proposed a bill that would limit parents to a list of 100 government-approved names when naming their children. I am not sure if this Venezuelan bill passed.

In light of this information indicating that names have no bearing on a child’s success, I wonder if these name-laws are pointless--or if there is some value in the naming-conventions. I know I certainly would have a problem being named “Satan” or some other equally “creative” word, but I wonder if “Segen” (meaning “Blessing”) would have made the government-cut…

Labels: names, segen