Names

In Australian and overseas law codes about personal names serve to shape national identity, allocate risk and position individuals as subjects of the state.

The Age reports that Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages figures indicate that 12,939 people in that state changed their names in 2010-11, with over 50,000 changes nationally.

Some new names are rejected by the registry on the grounds they are considered to be obscene or offensive, include numbers or symbols such as 1, @ or !, resemble an official title or rank recognised in Australia, such as a regal title, or are considered to be against the public interest and will cause confusion in the community. Names rejected in the past have included Batman and Jesus Christ.

The article states that -

Authorities say apart from the people who change their name every year, 900,000 others use at least one alias. In most cases, there are legitimate reasons for having a second name. Many women go by both their married and maiden names, some performers have stage names, some writers have noms de plume.

But there are fears a small proportion of people changing their names or creating aliases are doing so for nefarious reasons, such as to commit fraud.

A federal Attorney-General's Department spokesman said all jurisdictions across Australia were pursuing measures to ensure name changes were not being used to obscure criminal activity or mask bankruptcy.

The move includes national bans on name changes by registered sex offenders, limiting the number of name changes that can be made and requirements that requests will not be granted unless a registrar is satisfied the reason is legitimate.

Rejected name changes include -

Prime Minister
Pappa Smurf
Motorcycle Feelgood
Smart Arse
Cu L8r

In November last year NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith SC announced that -

The NSW Government is leading the way in a national crackdown on criminals changing their names to avoid detection, which will include an alert list for high-risk offenders. ... [He] hoped State and Territory Ministers would to agree to a 10-point plan developed by NSW when they gather in Launceston today ahead of a meeting of the Standing Council on Law and Justice.

Mr Smith said NSW was asked to report on ways of ensuring all jurisdictions had robust laws and processes in place, so there was no weak link that could be exploited by criminals and name-change information could be obtained in a timely manner.

There will also be a National Proof of Identity Framework and an electronic document verification system so registries that look after births deaths and marriages (BDMs) can verify people’s identity, and that they are not using illegal documents.

“Unfortunately some people change their name to conceal a criminal record, avoid detection by police, facilitate the commission of a crime or to simply create multiple identities,’’ Mr Smith said.

“This abuse of the system is a risk to the safety of the community and the police.

“The danger is heightened when you are talking about those convicted of serious crimes, such as pedophiles, moving interstate to escape detection and unleash their misery on unfortunate victims.”

Mr Smith said that under the strategy;

• All serious sex offenders must obtain approval before changing their name; 

• Police will be asked to provide an alert list for high-risk individuals to BDMs; 

• Prisoners and parolees will have to obtain approval and their supervising authorities will notify BDMs of the change; and 

• People can only change their name three times in a lifetime.

... “Inconsistencies between jurisdictions allow people to forum shop and find the place with the weakest safeguards,’’ Mr Smith said.

“This heightens the need for harmonisation in this area and these changes should go a long way to eliminating abuses of the system.”

The Communique issued after that intergovernmental meeting states that -

Change of name

Ministers agreed to consider implementing a best-practice approach to the change of name process in order to minimise abuse of the system, and agreed to remove this project from the agenda.

Law regarding self-characterisation and reinvention through name changes of course features some delights.

The New Mexico Court of Appeal in 2004 for example permitted Mr Snaphappy Fishsuit Mokiligon to change his name to Variable. A later petition to change his name to the F word Censorship was denied in Re Mokiligon, 2005-NMCA-021, 106 P.3d 584 (N.M. Ct. App. 2004), with the court citing the 'Misteri Nigger' judgment - Lee v. Superior Court, 9 Cal. App. 4th 510 (1992) - in holding that "one has a common law right to assume any name, and a right to engage in a social experiment, but one does not have a right to require the state to participate in the experiment, especially when the experiment involves epithets or vulgarities".

In the 2004 Arkansas Sheppard v. Speir the court considered litigation between two unmarried parents over a child's name, with father gaining cistody and seeking to change the name to Samuel Charles Speir from Weather'By Dot Com Chanel Fourcast Sheppard.

Registration in the UK reportedly included change from George Garratt to Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine The Hulk And The Flash Combined. Various people have channelled Monty Python and changed to Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F’tang-F’tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel.

US Courts have made inconsistent decisions on applications to change to Santa Claus, with for example a rejection in Ohio and support in Utah. In 2001 the Utah Supreme Court permitted David Porter to rename himself as Santa Claus, commenting that -

Porter's proposed name may be thought by some to be unwise, and it may very well be more difficult for him to conduct his business and his normal everyday affairs as a result. However, Porter has the right to select the name by which he is known, within very broad limits.

The New Zealand Family Court in 2008 made a distressed girl a ward of the court to enable change of her name from Talulah Does The Hula From Hawaii. The Court noted that the NZ Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages had blocked names such as Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, and Keenan Got Lucy. The NZ regime does not allow registration of names that would cause offence to a reasonable person, that are 100 characters or more long, that include titles or military rank or that include punctuation marks or numerals.

Litigation in Australia over names in passports, the electoral roll and the BDM registers includes

• Re Prime Minister John Piss the Family Court and Legal Aid v Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade [2000] AATA 1028,

• Re Nevil Joseph Brewer called "Abolish Child Support and Family Court" and Australian Electoral Commission (AAT 9 February 1996)

• Prime Minister John Piss the Family Court and Legal Aid v Electoral Registrar [2000] VSC 512 and 

• Informal v Chief Electoral Officer [1992] TASSC 2.