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:
- Aceituno
- Aguinaldo
- All Power
- Aniv de la Rev (short for “anniversary of the revolution”)
- Batman
- Beneficia (meaning “benefits”)
- Burger King
- Cacerolo
- Calzón (meaning “panties”)
- Caraciola
- Caralampio
- Cesárea
- Cheyenne
- Christmas Day
- Circuncisión (meaning “circumcision”)
- Culebro
- Delgadina (meaning “the skinny girl.” It’s from the Mexican folk song “La Delgadina.”)
- Diódoro
- Escroto (meaning “scrotum”)
- Espinaca (meaning “spinach”)
- Fulanita (meaning “so-and-so” or “what’s-her-name”)
- Gordonia
- Gorgonio
- Harry Potter
- Hermione
- Hitler
- Hurraca
- Iluminada
- Indio
- James Bond
- Lady Di
- Marciana (meaning “martian”)
- Masiosare (meaning “if one should dare,” roughly. It’s from the phrase mas si osare, which is part of the Mexican National Anthem.)
- Micheline
- Panuncio
- Patrocinio (meaning “patronage” or “sponsorship”)
- Petronilo
- Piritipio
- Pocahontas
- Pomponio
- Privado (meaning “private”)
- Procopio
- Rambo
- Robocop
- Rocky
- Rolling Stone
- Sobeida
- Sol de Sonora
- Sonora Querida
- Telésforo
- Terminator
- Tránsito (meaning “transit”)
- Tremebundo (meaning “terrifying” or “terrible”)
- Usnavy
- Verulo
- Virgen (meaning “virgin”)
- Yahoo
- 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:
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