mikewot

New Zealand have a list of banned names which include:
Lucifer
Majesty
4Real
Number 16 bus shelter
Violence
Benson and Hedges(twins)
Fish and Chips
Yeah Detroit
Stallion
Twisty Poi
Keenan Got Lucy
Sex Fruit
Anal
Mafia no fear
royal monikers, such as "King" and "Princess,"
and numeric characters, such as "III" and "89."

Plus - "Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii" which forced the courts to put her into court guardianship so her name could be changed.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10523288

Meow

*looks up*

Some people must really hate their children.

LaLaLayla

I love these name threads. My favourite sibling set, for pure randomness, is triplets (2 girls, 1 boy) called... Faith, Hope & Kevin.

Meow

OleJanx

Not very charitable...

britexpat76

I am in the top 10 as I probably have been since records began. I do love the fact that 3 people called their baby Rodney.........OF&H Fans?

Is Dave on the list?

Brains1983

Apparently, he's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.

Norm_uk

There's no such thing as a Muslim name. They are Arabic names...

N.

LaLaLayla

Yep. I have an Arabic name but am not a muslim. I am a Quaker, actually.

Bahtatboy

Tosh. A family who name their son Mohammed are giving him a Muslim name. The fact that the name was originally Arabic a century or so ago is irrelevant now in that context. You could argue that its both Arabic and Muslim, but my friend Shahab, from Pakistan, has definitely named his son Mohammed because of its Muslim-ness and not because of its Arabic-ness, and thus is becomes a Muslim name.

Meow

I have to agree with this. The name has become a Muslim name, in the same way that a non-Jew wouldn't be called Schmuel or a non-Christian Jesus.

It's context and association.

Yoohoo

I can't imagine anybody other than a Muslim deliberately calling their son Mohammed unless they were taking the p*ss.

Another very Islamic name is Abdullah. This name actually has the Islamic deity's name as a part of it. How can that not be Muslim?

Norm_uk

Muhammad is likely a title since it means 'praiseworthy' and it existed before Islam, in masculine and feminine forms (Muhammada for women occurs several times in the Syrian Book of the Himyarites).

Given the name Allah is pre-Islamic too so even Abdullah isn't truly 'Muslim'. Abyssinian and Yamanis at Najran sources list the name Mohammad yet they were Christian at the time and the founder of Islam had yet to be born. I maintain there are no such thing as Muslim names.

There are, however, names associated with Islam today and in the last 1400 years of course but they are not unique to Islam and many existed before.

It's a bit like saying Yeshua or Yehoshua (Jesus) is a Christian name when it's reasonable common Judean name from 2000 years ago that existed before Jesus of Nazareth was born for certain. Sorry to disappoint all the Mexicans reading that. The name Christ, like Mohammad is a title with a similar meaning: Anointed one.

N.

scot47

Reminds me of the dim-witted BBC commentator - "In fact Ghadafi's Christian name is Moammar"

Norm_uk

Allah is used by Muslims and Christian Arabs to refer to God, the Supreme Being. Since Abdullah literally means "slave/servant of Allah" a Christian Arab could conceivable call a child by that name and it would be no less valid a Christian or be taking the p*ss.

Allah was used by pre-Islamic Arabians to refer to one of their deities, who created the world and brought rains. This deity was not alone and is thought to have had sons and daughters, the Arabs were polytheists before. Mohammad's own father's name was Abdullah. It was in use as a name before Islam quite obviously.

As a side note Muslims believe that although Allah was the name of a pre-Islamic deity they do not worship this deity but rather seem to have adopted the name as a descriptor for the supreme being, in the same way as the ancient Hebrews took the name YHWH and Elohim from a pre-monotheistic Canaanite pantheons.

One could be called Percy Smith and be as Muslim as some called Omar or Khalid. It seems some Muslims place a primacy on Arabian culture which causes the present association with Arabian names and Islam. 1400 years of most Arabs being Muslim due to the previous Islamic conquests adds to this association no doubt. I suppose it's like so many Roman names being associated with Catholic names today.

N.