Re: CHAT: cultural interpretation [was Re: THEORY: language and the brain]

At 10:00 04/07/03, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à taliesin the storyteller :
>
>
>>I've also heard that there are countries where you can only take church-
>>approved names; that these are generally only the names of saints, and
>>that France is such a country.
>
>Nope. We have the same rule as in Sweden: any first name is allowed as
>long as it is not demetrial for the child. We've had true seperation of
>church and state for quite a while you know, so the church (which church
>anyway, we have freedom of religion!) has nothing to say about people's names.
>
>>  Further, that among other the french Basques
>>and the Bretons are not amused by this. Urban legend?
>
>Yes. I had a male friend called Goulwenn and a female friend called Rozenn
>(both Celtic Breton names. And he was of Breton origin and she was not),
>and their respective parents never got any problem giving them those
>names. And the recent wave of Kevins and Joans wouldn't have been possible
>if we had such a rule. And about Basques, don't forget our football player
>Bixente Lizarazu. His parents never had a problem naming him that way.
>
>Christophe Grandsire.

I knew I read about this somewhere.  According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

<<The next important law was passed in France. The French Revolution first
gave complete freedom in naming; the result was some very fanciful given
names like Mort aux Aristocrates, Racine de la Liberté, or even Café
Billard. To stop this, a law was passed in 1803 that restricted given names
to "names of persons known from ancient history" and "names used in various
calendars." Again, the law was successful in its main intention; in
addition, it prevented the spread of controversial given names such as
Marat and Robespierre and of literary names such as Aramis, d'Artagnan, and
Romeo. Very reasonably, the law never was interpreted too narrowly, so that
feminine given names such as Jeanette and Henriette, for example, have been
admitted, though they were not legal because no calendar contains them.
This law is still valid in France.>>

The point is it's not a list as such, but a rule for judging whether the
name is appropriate, so things like "Kevin" aren't outlawed.  And as it
says, it has been liberally applied: I've read an account of someone (I
forget who) who had a fanciful name; her parents got it by the law by
maintaining it was a variant on an established saint's name.

(Always assuming these sources are accurate, of course!)

Ian

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