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Forums - General Discussion - Iceland teen known legally as 'girl' fights for right to name

Immortal on 03 January 2013
pezus said:
Immortal said:


Well, it is Fox.

Still, any restrictions on naming children at all are quite unheard of in most places. I mean, is it worth sacrificing this kind of freedom to any extent for whatever minor benefits it offers? I mean, protecting the lanuage, really? I tend to approve of not bastardizing languages, but this really ain't worth it.

In fact, I'm rather surprised that we haven't yet had one of the many government-hating right-wing people on this sitecomment on this yet. This kind of government regulation is extremely unusual, to say the least.

That said, as long as this system is approved by the people for the most part, which it seems to be, more power to them. If Icelanders approve of this, then I don't think anyone outside has any business objecting.

Yes, to me that is worth it. It means we can read almost everything Icelanders have ever written and other Nordic nations wrote in the past. It means we have one of the oldest languages in Europe. It means our grammar actually makes sense, though it is hard for some. It means we can understand most other Nordic languages quite easily. There is a lot of freedom in naming your kids, it's just limited. 

This whole ability to get together and agree to sacrifice a certain amount of freedom in order to preserve culture is really quite admirable. Since I've really got used to the American tendency to refuse to trade off freedoms for something as silly and subjective as culture, the idea that such a thing has been successfully implemented and for the most part been accepted by the populace is completely blowing my mind.



 

“These are my principles; if you don’t like them, I have others.” – Groucho Marx

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crissindahouse on 03 January 2013

at least no one in iceland will call his kid after superman like nicolas cage. for that alone the name list is great^^ and the kids of geldorf could kill themselves if they wouldn't have such a rich family to visit only the best schools and everything.



NintendoPie on 03 January 2013
pezus said:
NintendoPie said:
pezus said:
NintendoPie said:
Isn't it kind of ridiculous to have a list of names that you must use?
I don't know how her name could be made fun of, the translation is quite pretty.

If you want to preserve the language, one step is to make rules such as these. They aren't that strict tbh, and they accept 'new' names all the time. They just have to fit into the language and not be offensive mostly.

Like I said, it's a male name. If that's not a reason to bully someone (for bullies), what is? But she is probably past most of that now though, since she is 15 already. 

Ohhhh, I totally skipped over your tl;dr part, sorry.

That wold make sense then. Is there no way to change it to a feminine name though?

It's possible, I guess, by changing how it's "inflected", that is how it changes based on the sentence. You see, words aren't just decided to be masculine or feminine based on nothing. Let's take a masculine word as an example, 'hundur' (means 'dog').

Þetta er hundur (This is a dog)
Um hund (About a dog)
Frá hundi (From a dog)
Til hunds (To a dog)

We know this word is masculine because of the way it changes based on the sentence. The same goes for Blær. It's possible to change the rules for that name but it would take a long time for the "public" to get a feminine feel from it. So, you won't stop bullying by just changing the rules of this name ;o

I was going to post something interesting but then my Internet went off. Forget it. -.-



Soleron on 03 January 2013
crissindahouse said:

at least no one in iceland will call his kid after superman like nicolas cage. for that alone the name list is great^^ 

Ah, the justification for every stupid rule ever. "Someone might hurt themselves".



Immortal on 03 January 2013
pezus said:
Immortal said:

This whole ability to get together and agree to sacrifice a certain amount of freedom in order to preserve culture is really quite admirable. Since I've really got used to the American tendency to refuse to trade off freedoms for something as silly and subjective as culture, the idea that such a thing has been successfully implemented and for the most part been accepted by the populace is completely blowing my mind.

Well I've never quite understood this whole 100% freedom thing (except not on the internet!) either lol. Culture isn't silly, it's what makes Icelanders Icelandic.


Although you're going to get into this argument with some very enraged American rightist sooner or later if this thread lasts long enough, I'm gonna start it just to play devil's advocate.

Even if culture does have some value in it, the fact of the matter is that all Icelanders won't necessarily appreciate it, right? I mean, I'm sure that there's at least a few Icelandic citizens who don't actually give a damn about their history or language. (Certainly, these people exist in huge numbers in most countries.) Isn't it unfair, then, to force these people to keep an Icelandic name, even though they really don't want to?

I mean, taking the idea of "preserving culture" to its extreme, you might as well ban all foreign brands and other forms of external influence so that Icelanders don't become less Icelandic. If you can do it with names, then why not with all other life choices?



 

“These are my principles; if you don’t like them, I have others.” – Groucho Marx

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NintendoPie on 03 January 2013
crissindahouse said:

at least no one in iceland will call his kid after superman like nicolas cage. for that alone the name list is great^^ and the kids of geldorf could kill themselves if they wouldn't have such a rich family to visit only the best schools and everything.

What are you trying to say in the bolded part?



miz1q2w3e on 03 January 2013
pezus said:

Yes, to me that is worth it. It means we can read almost everything Icelanders have ever written and other Nordic nations wrote in the past. It means we have one of the oldest languages in Europe. It means our grammar actually makes sense, though it is hard for some. It means we can understand most other Nordic languages quite easily. There is a lot of freedom in naming your kids, it's just limited. 

We enjoy all those and more, without resorting to silly rules like these. By "we" mean Jordan + other Arabic countries.

One of the oldest languages, tight grammar rules, we understand other arabic countries, plus other stuff, except we have full freedom of names.



crissindahouse on 03 January 2013
NintendoPie said:
crissindahouse said:

at least no one in iceland will call his kid after superman like nicolas cage. for that alone the name list is great^^ and the kids of geldorf could kill themselves if they wouldn't have such a rich family to visit only the best schools and everything.

What are you trying to say in the bolded part?

that bob geldorf's kids can be happy to have a rich family.



NintendoPie on 03 January 2013
crissindahouse said:
NintendoPie said:
crissindahouse said:

at least no one in iceland will call his kid after superman like nicolas cage. for that alone the name list is great^^ and the kids of geldorf could kill themselves if they wouldn't have such a rich family to visit only the best schools and everything.

What are you trying to say in the bolded part?

that bob geldorf's kids can be happy to have a rich family.

It still doesn't make much sense.

Who is Bob Geldorf?



crissindahouse on 03 January 2013
NintendoPie said:
crissindahouse said:
NintendoPie said:
crissindahouse said:

at least no one in iceland will call his kid after superman like nicolas cage. for that alone the name list is great^^ and the kids of geldorf could kill themselves if they wouldn't have such a rich family to visit only the best schools and everything.

What are you trying to say in the bolded part?

that bob geldorf's kids can be happy to have a rich family.

It still doesn't make much sense.

Who is Bob Geldorf?

it makes sense if your parents give you a fucked up name and you would even have problems to get a job with that name. but i don't really remember the names anymore but i believe i read once about it (maybe it wasn't that bad)