Two people...
...deadset on making their child's life an utter misery...
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 …
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.
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)
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
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?
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...
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.
... 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)
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.
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?
..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
...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. :)
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.
:)
...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.
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...
;-)
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.
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...."
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.