Iceland teen known legally as 'girl' fights for right to name

[Immortal]

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.