back to article NZ parents may lose battle to keep baby '4real'

Kiwis Pat and Sheena Wheaton may be forced to abandon their brave battle with authorities for the God-given right to name their son "4real", but have announced similarly creative backup plan. If a legal challenge is not mounted, The New Zealand Herald reports the infant will bear the official handle "Superman". According to the …

COMMENTS

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  1. Lickass McClippers

    Two people...

    ...deadset on making their child's life an utter misery...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I have a work a round

    how about.....wait for it....Four Real :D

  3. Mark

    If they insist on humiliating thier child

    Why don't they simply use "Forreal" as its name. No controversy over numbers and can be pronounced in non-embarrassing ways.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Do these parents ever think..

    about the abuse "4Real" aka "Superman" will get when he goes to school... talk about mental cruelty. I wonder if he can sue his parents?

    And frankly would you employ anyone called 4Real Wheaton?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    er...

    well if it's numbers (apart from stupidity) that is the problem, then how about "For Real".. but then I think we already realise that with this couple, common sense is indeed the least commonof all their senses..

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Am I Bovvered

    I pity the poor child and any future siblings if this is the best they can come up with.

    At least Dweeble Moonbeast has a ring to it.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Evidently not fit to raise a child

    The State should remove the child from these morons; they're obviously a danger to its mental and emotional development.

  8. Richard Woollacott

    What's in a name?

    What a pity Mr William's parents were so un-adventurous as to call him Chris. He could have had a much more fun time at school if he had been called 4skin.

  9. james

    dear god...

    Evidently the parents suck @ rl

    this is quite a good arguement for some sort of reproduction licence

  10. Jonathan Adams

    You gotta be kidding

    Are these guys allowed to be parents? are they really gonna name their kid with something that'll stick with him for the rest of his life.

    all i can say is ... are they for real?

  11. Steve Evans

    Surely the obvious solution...

    If numerics are a problem, then just call him/her Forreal or Fourreal.

    It doesn't really matter though, as the kid is bound change it at the first opportunity, and probably hate the parents for the years of torture he/she had to endure at school.

    Thinking about it for a second, why mess about, why not just name the child Kidoftwats.

  12. Dick

    Why not just spell it

    Ivreal ?

  13. Pete Silver badge

    a well designed name could really screw up databases

    How about naming your child NULL. Imagine how that would go down with database searches:

    select (*) from details where name=NULL;

    There could be a human version of an SQL virus out there if someone was willing to put in the thinking - providing they don't mind incurring the wrath of the child in question

    I would expect there are also possibilities with PHP phrases too.

    (could make a boy named Sue quite lame)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stick with it

    I hope you stick with this story so that when this kid becomes a teenager and shoots both of these tw@ts I can read about it here and give a good ole Nelson "HA HA" to salute them.

  15. Matt Bucknall

    So....

    Why not just call the baby forreal? Or iz dat jus not streeeet init?

  16. Tony Pott

    Stupid

    This is just bloody mindedness. I'm sure they would have no problem calling their child Foreal, which actually looks like quite a nice name.

  17. Gav

    Hopeless

    "I'm certainly not a quitter."

    No, but you certainly are dumb.

    I would feel sorry for the kid, but he's already a lost cause. With parents like this, the boy has no hope of escaping the giant sucking void of stupidity that must surround the family.

  18. Morely Dotes

    Re: Do these parents ever think..

    In a word, no.

    They clearly are unfit to even attempt it.

  19. FerretOfDoom

    Whatever

    This is quite stupid. Giving a child an idiotic name for their own amusement and gain. Nevemind that this poor child is going to get his lunch money taken everyday and will spend the better half of his student life stuffed in a locker.

    Unless, of course, they move to Hollywood, California. Where their rights to the story of the struggle against the greater evil of the NZ courts will be made into a book and a movie. Then there's the sequel when they have a boy and name it

    xXxP4P4-$/\/\URFxXx.

    I said it first so I get the rights. :-P

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: a well designed name could really screw up databases

    Reminds me of years ago when a guy got a personalized license plate for his car: "NONE" He got a traffic ticket, and the officer was forced to write: "NONE" in the space for the license number. Thus began a roller-coaster ride with the authorities, where he repeatedly received citations & license revocation notices.

    "4real" is going to have fun when he has to take one of those tests in school where you have to pencil in little circles for each letter in your name... of course that's the least of his worries...

    I wonder... What's did 4real's parents choose for a middle name?

  21. Ross Rochford

    re: a well designed name could really screw up databases

    I think you would put NULL in single quotes as I believe is required by SQL. That would be funny though : )

  22. James

    Bets on the Future of this child

    Bet this kid turns out to be deadly serious in all aspects of his life.

    In other words a Bean counter..

    or changes his name as soon as he legal can.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Mark

    Sorry but if I saw someone named 'Forreal', first thing I'd do is call them 'foreskin'. Not sure why, but that's the first thing that came to mind :p

  24. Steven

    Dumb ass rapper names

    when this kid becomes a rapper he can change his name to George

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Elizabeth Duke

    Can't wait for the christening, gift list from Argos.

  26. Alan Potter

    What's in a name?

    I think Sur Real would be more fitting here.

    Or, to go back in time to good old ASCII and teletype printers, his name could be something like: 0x04, 0x07, 0x08 and so on. If they were really imaginative in their use of codes they could get the printer to draw a face or something...

  27. Dillon Pyron

    Name Nazis?

    Didn't take it long for this discussion to hit Godwin.

    4real = 4skin? Sure. Dillon became dildo when the punks in HS decided to try to get my goat up. So I let half the air out of their tires and super glued the valve stem covers on. Sticks & stones and all that crap.

    Maybe they should name him Rufus Uticus 4real.

    Or they could us some unpronounceable symbol and call him The Baby Formerly Known as 4real.

  28. Chris

    Failing that

    If you want to make peoples lives hard OR '*' would be mostly amusing. The expression "a good argument for birth control" could be relevant here.

  29. David

    Re: a well designed name could really screw up databases

    the correct SQL syntax is

    select (*) from details where name is NULL;

    no quotes, no nothing.

    It was a nice idea but it wouldn't work in practice. (Not on a proper database, anyway. I dunno about SQLServer or Access or similar things)

  30. Jack Prichard

    How embarrising...

    ... not just for the kid but for the whole country. I know, I'm a New Zealander. We have spent the last 20 years trying to convince the world that we are not a bunch of backward, inbred country hicks and this couple set back the cause for everybody. Not least by actually being sincere about it all, I've seen them on the TV news here and they really mean it.

    Can't we have them deported? Maybe to Australia? (Sorry Aussies, just jokes)

  31. Grant Alexander

    embarrassed at being a kiwi too

    My countrymen have really lost it! I agree with deportation, though I'd let them off half way to Aussie.

    I have suggested that the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages should issue parents of this ilk with t-shirts reading "the name i gave my kid is tantamount to child abuse". The morons would wear it with pride.

    The hackneyed phrase "for real" will be "lame as" in 5 years, just as "massive" and "cool" etc etc have disappeared from everyday idiom. So the poor kid will be lumbered with a name that will date very quickly.

  32. Dale Morgan

    amazing!

    His parents seem to stupid to breed but somehow nature found a way!

    I don't think '4real' will be intelligent enough to care about his name if he takes after his parents.

  33. Grant Alexander

    Messing with databases

    I wonder if the Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages objection with a number appearing in a name is due to a rule that has been applied to a field in their database? When designing the database the developers would have logically assumed only characters would appear in the forename fields. A reasonable assumption.

    If they bend their rules, and presumably change the field type on the database, then the knock on effect to all other agencies or organisations with which this child interacts throughout the course of their life could be huge. Inland Revenue probably has a similar restriction.

    How much could it cost to make every database in New Zealand 4Real compliant, and then what happens if he decides to emigrate?

  34. ryan

    It's the end of the world!

    Names with numbers? And we thought y2k was bad!

    On a side note (true story):

    My grandfather hated his name so bad that he refused to name his first child. They just called him Bud until he was old enough to choose a name.

  35. Michael Lomas

    I live here...

    ..in NZ and such wonderful names are quite common. My sister-in-law works at a local school and has come across these wonders:

    Otahuhu Bus Stop

    - Otahuhu is a suburb - apparently this is where the child was concieved - yes really

    Batman

    - Superman will at least have company

    Benson and Hedges

    - Twins, named after their mothers favourite ciggies

  36. jai

    a need for parenting licenses

    isn't there a saying along the lines of "you need a license to carry a gun, pass a driving test to drive a car, but any frigging idiot can be a parent"

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: a well designed name could really screw up databases

    Just name your child "a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM data WHERE name LIKE '%" and hope the world has backups!

  38. Bill Fresher

    Loreal

    If I have a daughter I'm going to call her L'Oréal.

  39. timbo baggins

    On the other hand...

    ...who the hell is the government to tell two humans how they should or shouldn't name their children?

    Restrictions to one's custom car license plate is one thing... but seriously, naming is one of the most fundamental human traits, especially the naming of your offspring.

    I'm sure there's the odd HUGE character in our collective human history whose given name, in the context of the time, was... um... odd in the eyes of others. :)

  40. krakead

    Euthanasia for the parents seems the best option

    DELETE FROM life WHERE ParentIQ < 90 AND ChildID IN (SELECT ChildID FROM kids WHERE Name IS LAME)

  41. Bill Fresher

    Think different

    I wonder if those remarking that the parents should be killed for wishing a name for their child that differs from the norm are also those that:

    1) Were bullied at school and now think that anyone standing out from the crowd is a fair target for brutal attack.

    2) Ridicule anyone who'd rather use a Mac than a Window's PC and call them a fanboi.

    :)

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've thought for a while...

    ...that the way to circumvent nasty namecalling in school is to beat the namecallers to the punch. I'm named 'David' which is about as generic as it gets, and I still got 'Davey Crockett', etc etc. So it doesn't matter; kids will make fun of kids with any name because they're *mean*!

    So my idea is to cut them off at the pass and name my kid "dickhead". What're they gonna call him? "Hey, it's Dickhead the... uh... dickhead?" Yeah, so?

    In the end, bullying is about power. The kids with the least perceived power will be bullied, no matter their names. If 4Real is a big, hulking, athletic, good-looking kid with good fashion sense, he won't get made fun of, and if James Verdon is scrawny he'll get called SlimJim. Doesn't matter.

  43. krakead

    Re: Think different

    If they wanted to name *themselves* 4real, 4skin, 4godssakekillmenow or whatever then I say great, go for it. It's that they want to burden some poor kid with such a name that's not on - they're the poor sod that will have to live with the results of their parent's faddish idiocy.

    Oh, and everyone knows Mac users are fanboi spazzes anyhow...

    ;-)

  44. Paul

    @Bill Fresher

    No. We are just not Naive enough to think that the kid won't get bullied. I wish him all the best, and wish we were in a world where he would be fine, but I know he will get 7 shades kicked out of him.

    Also, It should be up to the kid to stand out if he wants, not for that to be thrust apon him by selfish parants.

  45. Barry

    Better as a middle name

    They should call him "Superman 4real Wheaton". I can imagine what all his introductions will be like.

    "Hi, I'm Superman."

    "For real?"

    "Yes, that's my middle name. How did you know?"

    Re: Think different

    Properly, it should be written "think differently", unless you walk around thinking, "Different, different, different...."

  46. Richard Head

    Well..

    Thats a silly name

  47. Sami

    @Barry

    that made me laugh so hard! Yep, it probably will go something like this if they keep calling him 4real at home.. Superman, 4real, Wheaton.. what a crack up, what are those parents thinking?

  48. Ed White

    Right!

    Ok, after reading the story I can see why they wanted to named their kid "4real". I think they were happy to see that they were going to be parents, and did not really think about the future of that kid. I think that if they wanted to call the kid "Forreal" or "Foreal" it would be no different that someone naming their kid "Jaquanda" or what ever other odd names I have heard in the states since I was a kid. I think they should take a moment and think of that kids future.

    On a 2nd note, Yes I was one of the ones that was picked on also, however that all stopped as soon as I broke the nose of the little fu@ker who kept bothering me for 2 years. Kids are not born mean, they learn it from their parents. I don't care what anyone says when they complain about too much violence on TV or Video games etc.. The bottom line its parents who did not think.

    Bottom line in this, the parents need to think about the kid and not about what sounds cool to use as a name.

  49. Edward Pearson

    Dont do drugs...

    This is what happens when parents take too many psychedelic drugs.

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