Wheels come off parents' plan to dub sprog 'Mini Cooper' A French couple's plan to dub their daughter "Mini Cooper" looks to be heading for the breaker's yard after officials referred the matter to court. According to L'Indépendant, the town hall in Perpignan alerted the public prosecutor's office to the name, which in turn asked judges to rule against the moniker. French law allows …
Of course its Paris
thats the only place other than Turin where you'd get a Mini with those oversized bolt on bumpers
In Italy some of the Innocenti Coopers had the "wrong" radiator grille like the one in the photo, but thats not an Innocenti Cooper. Looking at the 1970's style "Mini" badge on that grille I'd gamble on it being a Belgian Seneffe built one? Thoughts anyone?
Kid at the training centre I worked at in Scotland was christened Elvis, he was fortunate in one respect, he had a very high forehead which meant he was dubbed Tefal by his contemporaries and escaped any jibing about his name. Clip of Tefal ad for those too young to remember.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsNwtBv3PI0
"We were concerned his kiddie could become called Maurice Minor"
In the public school system they distinguished concurrent siblings at the same school by a standard suffix to their family name. So "Morris, major" would not be a problem - his younger brother would be "Morris, minor".
There is a definite trend for giving one's special little stars 'unique' names, frequently involving the addition of random zeds and totally made up words. And what is it with giving your offspring a surname as a first name, especially when the family name could also be a first name? E.G. (made up by me to show the sort of thing) Smith Graham.
I'm personally in favour of giving them all a unique ID number at birth, it'd make life a lot easier from a data analysis perspective.
And what is it with giving your offspring a surname as a first name, especially when the family name could also be a first name?
Oi!
I have a first name as a surname and a surname as a first name. Some people write it the wrong way round, some imagine it's double-barrelled, some get it right.
I quite like both and they're essential to my identity even though I chose neither.
There is a girl at work who has an unusual spelled first name and her last name is paul...
Because the work exchange server shows names as Last, First
A lot of people assume she has a funny second name and email her saying "Hi Paul"
I once also had a Customer Called Mr David.. Or Mr Emmanuel... We never got to the bottom of that (it was Mr David in the system and thats what he seemed go with... but was that just because he had given in explaining to people??!!)
A Scottish colleague was stopped by the police one night as he was driving home. They asked where he was going from and to. So he named the two towns of his journey.
Then they asked his name - which happened to be the same two names as the respective towns. I remember one was "Hamilton".
I'm personally in favour of giving them all a unique ID number at birth, it'd make life a lot easier from a data analysis perspective.
Unless you're dyslexic... then that might be a problem. OTOH, we could see going back to the early days of LED calculators and writing things with numbers that made words. Unintended consequences and all that.
"the Geldof's for instance have three daughters, Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom and Pixie..."
I was listening quite recently to Bob Geldof on Desert Island Discs (all existing episodes are on the BBC website) and IIRC the very young Peaches said the new baby looked like a Pixie so that was the name she got. I think there was almost reasonable sounding reasons for the other names too.
It's surprising how stuff can escape your attention. After carefully selecting a couple of attractive names for our daughter we never cottoned onto the significance of the initials until they caused a certain amount of confusion about her status when she was a post-grad. It's all resolved now as she's Dr DR ...
"It's surprising how stuff can escape your attention. After carefully selecting a couple of attractive names for our daughter we never cottoned onto the significance of the initials until they caused a certain amount of confusion about her status when she was a post-grad. It's all resolved now as she's Dr DR ..."
There's a famous mathematician called HSM Coxeter. His two middle names were swapped from their original position after the unfortunate abbreviation was pointed out by a Godparent.
Reminds me of a couple of similar examples, like Mr and Mrs Peacock who christened their child Andrew, but being American always referred to him as Drew, at least until he grew up and other kids at school started taking the piss and calling him Viagra.
Also the noted (by some) French Physicist d'Arsonval (or Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval to give him his full name and double the sniggers), compounded by having his most famous work being d'Arsonval's Movement (as exhibited in moving-coil galvanometers and similar meters).
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While this sort of thing might make sense, that France prevents Breton parents from giving their children Breton names, or Norway disallows children being given Swedish names, and so on is completely contrary to civilized norms, and therefore should be prohibited by the human rights codes of the European Union.
That French naming policy ended about 15-20 years ago - they now only rule out obviously silly names. The first test case was for a boy called Zebulon (known in the UK as Zebedee, as in the Magic Roundabout) - it was disallowed.
Restricting names to those of saints did however have the advantage that you'd get additional presents on your saint's day, as well as on your own birthday.
Despite the fact that growing up it caused no end of teasing. I can't get over the number of teachers that over the years told me I should use my middle name instead. I have to ask, what in the name of ${DEITY} is *wrong* with giving your child a unique name? Certainly, there are those that have reached into truly bizarre territory to do so, but it really isn't *wrong*. I don't think calling someone Hashtag would be wise, or perhaps naming your daughter Fart, but I see nothing wrong with finding something that fits your child, and your sensibility.
I think Frank Z's kids did just fine with their names, and Dweezil and Moonunit are just about as far out there as one might go.
I know of a teenager who goes by the name Mini Cooper. I rather suspect, with her sense of humour, she'll be looking to get one to drive.
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