The Surprising Baby Names Banned Across the World

Many countries have a list of quite unusual and some surprising names which are banned in their territory.

In Mexico for example, you can’t name your child Harry Potter or Batman or Terminator.

They also banned, Lady Di, Virgin, Circumcision, Cesarean, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Private and Rolling Stone.

Naming your children after animals, fruits or vegetables is banned in Malaysia. So rethink if you want your daughter to be called Apple or Coco or Bear.

Maya, Linda and Lauren are some names that are banned in Saudi Arabia.

In Portugal, nicknames like Tom, Rob or Sammy are not allowed on birth certificates. It is OK to call someone Tomás, but not Tom or Thomas. Mona Lisa is also banned.

Germany does not allow surnames or names of objects to be used as proper nouns. Also the names should be gender specific and not unisex in nature. The Name Adolf Hitler is also banned.

Names starting with the letter “C” are outlawed in Iceland because the letter does not exist in Icelandic alphabets. (Is that for real?)

List of names banned in Sweden include Metallica, Ikea and Q. The country bans names that are not suitable as a first name.

In Portugal the names of both the children of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, along with William, Emily and Michael are on the banned baby names list in the European country.

Earlier this year we shared “The weird baby names banned in New Zealand” – Included in the 35 banned baby names are two punctuation marks, ‘.’ and ‘/’, reports 7 news.

“Less than one per cent of babies have their proposed name considered, but the name of any baby born and registered in New Zealand must comply with New Zealand’s rules, regardless of the nationality of the parents,” Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages Jeff Montgomery told the New Zealand Herald.

Rejected names in NZ

• .
• /
• Chief
• Duke
• Ida-Qween
• II
• III
• IV
• Jahstice
• Judge
• Justice
• Justyce
• Justyce-Krimson
• King
• Lady
• Legion-King
• Majesty
• Major
• Messiah
• Miss
• Priince
• Prince
• Prince-Pahata
• Prynce
• Regal
• Rogue
• Royaale
• Royal
• Royale-Lee
• Royall
• Royalty
• Saint
• Sovereign
• Triple M
• X

Share your comments below.

Shutterstock photo

We may get commissions for purchases made using links in this post. Learn more.

35 Comments

- - meedee said
  - 09 Jun 2023
    11:44 am
Thank goodness doe a littel common sense from governments.

- - MisChip said
  - 11 Nov 2019
    10:55 pm
I don’t think it is surprising at all!

- - ella12 said
  - 19 Sep 2019
    4:45 pm
Those names don’t really appeal to me.

- - mom376182 said
  - 18 Sep 2019
    10:12 am
I’m not surprised by most of these, although I think Rogue is a pretty cool name.

- - DaffyD said
  - 16 Sep 2019
    3:02 pm
Those names are banned with good reason, saves the poor child spending their lives as Bus-shelter as yes I have heard of that one

- - tessie said
  - 16 Sep 2019
    11:41 am
Where do people come up with those silly names. I’m glad they’re banned otherwise the child would grow up being ridiculed.

- - sars_angelchik said
  - 16 Sep 2019
    10:44 am
Oh dear! Those names in that list should be banned too! I think maybe they are too lax in Australia because there are some seriously weird names and the kid is going to have to grow up with that and then be an adult with that name…

- - rovermum said
  - 16 Sep 2019
    9:21 am
Who knew such a list even existed? It was a funny read and I clearly had no idea that such names were banned.

- - littlehandsofmine said
  - 16 Sep 2019
    8:53 am
This is interesting, some names you wouldn’t really choose and some you would but in Portugal it isn’t allowed

- - shanika said
  - 15 Sep 2019
    5:55 pm
I can’t imagine how mums choose these names.

- - Krystal said
  - 15 Sep 2019
    4:36 pm
Some of the banned names are ridiculous. Why would anyone want a baby called ‘.’ anyway?

- - mom207052 said
  - 15 Sep 2019
    3:49 pm
Wow some of the banned names surprise me but I’m going to find out more as to the “why”. I’m sure there are logical explanations!

- - rachel1970 said
  - 15 Sep 2019
    3:05 pm
I don’t understand why people would want to name their kids something weird. But, I don’t know why some of them would be banned.

- - Angie1981 said
  - 15 Sep 2019
    11:30 am
I can understand most of them being banned as some people would name their kid something horrible just for the attention and fame but there are a few there that definitely make you wonder why they could possibly be banned….unless it’s a translation faux par

- - Jbuttxx said
  - 15 Sep 2019
    7:56 am
What a bizzar list, funny how they had to ban them because because actually wanted to name their kids that..others like linda is a bit strange to ban. I wonder the reason

- - Ellen said
  - 14 Sep 2019
    7:36 am
Interesting how different names are banned in different countries.
- cherz replied
  
  14 Sep 2019 , 2:46 pm
  Yes indeed Ellen and looks like Iceland is out for me .
- - musicmum said
  - 14 Sep 2019
    1:14 am
I wonder why the names Maya, Linda and Lauren are banned in Saudi Arabia? Maybe it translate to something offensive?
It is fair enough for many of the other names.

- - mom290396 said
  - 13 Sep 2019
    9:57 pm
The New Zealand one is quite interesting! Also the ban on any names beginning with the letter C. Kinda makes you wonder who tries to name their child . / or Roman numerals???

- - cherz said
  - 13 Sep 2019
    8:38 pm
Looks like I best not travel to Iceland then. ABC really is not as easy as 123.

- - mom101628 said
  - 09 Jun 2018
    10:17 pm
Amazed at some of these names and agree they should be banned.