Baby Name: Cheyenne

On February 10, the Civil Registration Act went into effect in the Mexican state of Sonora (which is right across the border from Arizona).

Article 46 of the act allows local authorities to reject baby names they deem derogatory, discriminatory, defamatory, libelous and meaningless, among other things.

The state also banned 61 specific baby names, and will likely ban more names in the future. All of the banned names came directly from Sonora’s birth registries (meaning that each has been used at least once already).

After doing some digging, I finally found the full list of banned names on a Mexican news site. Here it is:

1. Aceituno
2. Aguinaldo
3. All Power
4. Aniv de la Rev (short for “anniversary of the revolution”)
5. Batman
6. Beneficia (meaning “benefits”)
7. Burger King
8. Cacerolo
9. Calzón (meaning “panties”)
10. Caraciola
11. Caralampio
12. Cesárea
13. Cheyenne
14. Christmas Day
15. Circuncisión (meaning “circumcision”)
16. Culebro
17. Delgadina (meaning “the skinny girl.” It’s from the Mexican folk song “La Delgadina.”)
18. Diódoro
19. Email
20. Escroto (meaning “scrotum”)
21. Espinaca (meaning “spinach”)
22. Facebook
23. Fulanita (meaning “so-and-so” or “what’s-her-name”)
24. Gordonia
25. Gorgonio
26. Harry Potter
27. Hermione
28. Hitler
29. Hurraca
30. Iluminada
31. Indio
32. James Bond
33. Lady Di
34. Marciana (meaning “martian”)
35. Masiosare (meaning “if one should dare,” roughly. It’s from the phrase mas si osare, which is part of the Mexican National Anthem.)
36. Micheline
37. Panuncio
38. Patrocinio (meaning “patronage” or “sponsorship”)
39. Petronilo
40. Piritipio
41. Pocahontas
42. Pomponio
43. Privado (meaning “private”)
44. Procopio
45. Rambo
46. Robocop
47. Rocky
48. Rolling Stone
49. Sobeida
50. Sol de Sonora
51. Sonora Querida
52. Telésforo
53. Terminator
54. Tránsito (meaning “transit”)
55. Tremebundo (meaning “terrifying” or “terrible”)
56. Twitter
57. Usnavy
58. Verulo
59. Virgen (meaning “virgin”)
60. Yahoo
61. Zoila Rosa

Some thoughts:

• Facebook is the legal first name of at least 2 human beings at this point. Amazing.
• Robocop, I must admit, has been on my “baby names I am dying to find in the wild” list for many years. At last, proof that it exists! Exciting stuff. (Haven’t yet come across any babies named Chucknorris, however. Fingers still crossed on that one.)
• Hermione? I can see why Sonora would object to “Harry Potter” and “James Bond,” but Hermione by itself (as opposed to “Hermione Granger”) makes no sense. Hermione is a legitimate (and lovely) name that existed long before the Potter books.

What are your thoughts? And, which name on the list above shocked you the most?

Sources:

• Aceituno, Hermione, Hitler, Facebook, Yahoo y la lista completa de los nombres prohibidos en Sonora
• Sonora prohíbe registrar niños con nombres peyorativos
• Scrotum, Hitler, Facebook: Mexican state bans outlandish baby names