A woman was left “devastated” after her daughter’s passport application was rejected because she was named after a Game of Thrones character.
Lucy, 39, from Swindon in Wiltshire, said the Passport Office initially refused the application for Khaleesi, six.
Officials said they were unable to issue a passport unless Warner Brothers gave permission because it owned the name’s trademark. But the authority has since apologised for the error.
The idea that corporations could own your name is positively dystopian.
All the women named Madison suddenly owe royalties to the rightsholders of the 1984 mermaid-in-Manhattan comedy Splash. Also, anyone named Wendy has to pay the J. M. Barrie estate or change their name to Gwendolyn.
“Son Of Matthew” Is a pretty name for a girl though.
This has been pissing me off for so long!
In fact anyone using surnames as first names. Stop it.
But Go back far enough, and a surname is just the given name of your father, or the town you live in, or the trade you do.
More accurate to stop using given names as surnames!
Absolutely. We need to throw off these 11th century traditions and make sure our children’s entire names sound like a double barrelled surname.
Now I wonder if that would require a lawsuit between the J. M. Barrie estate & the Wendy’s restaurant chain.
what a timely reference that everyone will get right away
don’t get me wrong- I watched Splash on HBO once a summer for half a decade- I got chu
owned the name’s trademark
People really don’t understand trademark despite it being in the name. It’s a trade mark. It’s a mark on something you trade. It only applies to commercial products. Unless Warner Brothers sells children there’s no trademark violation.
Unless Warner Brother’s sells children
With the way the world is lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.
Although, if any one company was going to that, it’d probably be Disney.
When they age out of the It’s A Small World cast, Disney sells them to Nestlé.
I’m prepared to believe this, so won’t be fact-checking it.
Oh are you a journalist
I sometimes pretend to be one at home. “Hold the front page!”, “this story is too good not to be true!”, etc.
Poor kid gonna grow up and watch the show where she was named after right before the final season.
There’s a final season? I’m pretty sure they decided to wait for GRRM to finish the books as it would be silly to just go off the map and start making things up, as that could go awfully wrong.
I sure hope they don’t rush it just because they want to go do some other projects!
That’d be disastrous.
My name is alarmingly close to one of the characters (my mate who was reading the books when they first came out thought it was hilarious), but at least I’m not the newsreader Jon Snow.
Imagine the number of times people have smugly said to him, “you know nothing!” Ina bad Scottish accent.
Ygritte was meant to be Scottish?
First season is heavy enough isn’t it? Life lessons:
- get abused by your family
- get burned
- get fucked
Well I think the lesson is that after all the hardship she still fights her way to the top. That is at least inspiring. Then the last season happened.
Mental how many people actually thought Khaleesi was the character’s name.
Do you think maybe it’s just the fictional version for all the people that named their children Earl, Princess, Queen, Duke, or any of the other titles that became names?
Add Caesar too. Although it has declined in popularity.
Originally in my list then dropped because when I’ve offered this counter in the past I’ve had people argue that was originally a name. Regina and Reginald should have been in my list as well.
You mean they named their dogs that, right?
How to tell if your parents are morons…
This girl is going to call herself “K.” by the time she’s 14.
Or Sarah.
Official explained there had been a misunderstanding and the guidance staff had originally given applies only to people changing their names.
It’s still fucked
This seems fucking daft. How do you refuse a name? Unless your name is a literal blank then you should be allowed any stupid name you desire.
Here in Germany, they can decide to refuse a name for a child if it’s overly krass or might make the child’s life unduly difficult. While one can argue about whether they like that, at least it only happens once. If you have a name, you can get as many passports with it on there as you want.
some twonk at the passport office invented this rule.
hence the apology. The Uk passport office has no right or duty to enforce trademarks.
In Malaysia same rule apply, but the only gate is from the National Registration Department, where they might reject name including joke name and stupidly long name, the other department have no such power.
At least no child have to live with the name Biggus Dickus or Incontinetia Buttocks for 18 years.
The Passport Office has admitted that it was a mistake and have sorted this out. The interesting question is how this happened. I’ve known a few people who work their and they aren’t beyond dicking about - back in the day they might mess with famous people by sticking their photograph on upside down. I could see them doing something like this is they thought someone had a stupid name.
It is a stupid name. Why lumber the kid with an unnecessarily daft name? It’s not even easy to spell.
I’ve got a somewhat odd name (at least I’m not named after a character from a book), and I do wish my parents would just have gone with Tom or something.
It’s also not actually a name in the source material. It’s like watching a story about 18th century France and naming your daughter “Dauphine”, or about 1st century BC Rome and naming your son “Consul”.
smith, cobbler, tanner. look new names exist somehow, naming people after characters in stories is as old as names.
Even a blank name can work for some; https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ is a fun read if you’ve never encountered it before.
I’ve only quickly read that. Kinda funny with reference to the Klingon Empire.
However this doesn’t say anything about blank names. The closest it comes is point six.
- People’s names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
But I believe that is talking about an upper limit rather than a lower limit.
If your first and last name (or any combination of however many names you have) is literally blank then how do you expect to function in society? Let alone modern society.
You’ll end up with an alias (which is essentially nickname) that someone assigns you that will become your de facto name… and now you have a name .
Point 40: “People have names”.
Every country has guidelines and rules on names.
I’m pretty sure the UK doesn’t.
We probably should but I don’t think we actually do which is why it’s kind of daft that this was refused.
The UK does indeed have certain limitations on what a name can be.
Names that contain obscenities, numerals, misleading titles, or are impossible to pronounce are likely to be rejected by the Registering Officer, when registering a child.
There are no restrictions on adults assuming any new name, unless the purpose of the name change is fraudulent.
This doesn’t make any sense. The colour brown is a trademark of UPS, yet I’ve known people with the last name Brown who were able to get passports.
that’s probably why they apologize for it
While completely daft on part of the passport office, I suppose this is a cautionary tale about naming your kids after popular TV characters (particularly those with unique names). Turns out it can cause you a spot of trouble
Especially if their character arc hasn’t run its course yet. They might turn into a genocidal maniac that has sex with her estranged half brother or something like that.
Now I’ve never watched this programme but now I’m assuming it’s set somewhere below the Mason-Dixon Line, yes? 😉
“My son’s name is also Joffrey.”
That’s an easy one to shrug off in years to come as a poorly spelled Jeffrey. Khaleesi just says “My name is one is a long line of bad mistakes my parents made.”
Reading through the comments to this and all I kept thinking was, “Mrs Yeti Goosecreature, you’ve got a funny name, haven’t you?” “Yes, yes, it’s Simon.” Anyone else that old here ? 😀
Anyone else that old here ? 😀
Oh crumbs no, at least not first time around.
