Posted on 05/08/2009 2:33:55 PM PDT by MyTwoCopperCoins
BERLIN: Germany is renowned for fighting inflation, but the battle extends beyond money and into the realm of names. In a split decision on Tuesday, the German Constitutional Court upheld a ban on married people combining already-hyphenated names, forbidding last names of three parts or more.
It was not the first time the court was forced to weigh in on the subject of names, which are regulated start to finish, fore to family, in Germany. This time, it was a Munich couple who decided to challenge the constitutionality of a 1993 rule limiting the names of married people to a single hyphen and two last names.
Frieda Rosemarie Thalheim, a Munich dentist, wanted to take the last name of her husband, Hans Peter Kunz-Hallstein, to become Frieda Rosemarie Thalheim-Kunz-Hallstein. The case brought Germany’s minister of justice before the court in Karlsruhe for oral arguments in February to defend the ban on what the Germans call “chain names.”
By a vote of five to three, the court refused to budge, ruling that ballooning names “would quickly lose the effectiveness of their identifying purpose,” and declined to overturn the law.
Germany takes a highly regimented approach to naming. Children’s names must be approved by local authorities, and there is a reference work, the International Handbook of Forenames, to guide them.
Germany’s economy minister found professional success despite bearing the lengthy name Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg, a name as aristocratic as it is long.
Bad news for Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dingle -dangle -dongle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker - thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser - kurstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -ein -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mitz -weimache - auuber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker-kalbsfleisch -mittler -aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm
No, not ridiculous, BIZARRE!
These people are mentally ill or something.
Beat me to it!
Adolf Hitler is a rather short name.
Like George Frederick Ernest Albert Saxe-Coburg Gotha, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather?
Darn! By the time I typed the name, you’d already posted it. :-)
It’s things like this that separates Britain from Europe, although those lines are beginning to smudge now.
For example, you wouldn’t want to hear about the Italian teenager, on whom the State forced an abortion against her will, because she was underaged, and her parents didn’t want her to have the child.
What about Schickelgruber?
There’ve been several such abortions in the People’s Republic of Maryland. They love fascism over there.
The "master race" doesn't want embarrassing names attached to it.
How about our Congress holding hearings on College football playoffs?
Germany has enough ridiculously long words........I agree with the decision
What about symbols like the-artist-previously-known-as-Prince?
“These people are mentally ill or something. “
You can take the Nazi out of the National Socialists but you can’t take the National Socialist out of the Nazi.
Gee, I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas about this!
Unless they’re...grandfathered. :D
............”How about our Congress holding hearings on College football playoffs?”.................
or on steroids in baseball?
So much for my plans to move to Berlin and change my last name to Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious (forgive spelling)
Germans have funny names. Assmann, Assheuer, Pornschlegel, Schweinsteiger, Feldmaus, Siswanker ...
More here.
What’s next, Poland banning vowels in names? (Oh wait, they already did that) ;)
I think you’re missing the “-geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung” in there somewhere.
I'd like to see him fit that all in on a signature line of a regular check ;-)
First they came for the handicapped, then the Jews, now the extremely long-named.
"My bologna has a first name, it's F R I T Z. My bologna has a second name, it's S C H N A C K E N P F E F F E R H A U S E."
Being Germans, they also failed to see the irony or the humor in having done so.
Actually, I just looked it up and it appears that the writer of this article left out part of that last name. According to Wikipedia, it should be:
Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Noddy Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg.
After all, what’s more important than that a reporter get who what when where why right?
I read about a chinese couple that wanted to name their daughter “@” and the Gov’t wouldn’t allow it.
Too short perhaps?
I will remind all and sundry one more time ... the function of government is to govern. “They” will take what “we” will relinquish.
Hope they don’t ban my barber’s name: Herr Cutter.
Sounds like a 50's Rock 'n Roll song...
I guess “Hitler” is is short enough for them.
So what if Herr von Schwindt marries Fraulein von Becken. Does she call herself Frau von Becken-von Schwindt or Frau vons Becken-Schwindt?
You misspelled one.
Ich bin ein Berl.
A friend of mine used to make his living cutting welfare checks. One client of his agency went by a long European name like, say, Poniatowski. Then she married a Thai guy and adopted a hyphenated name like Poniatowski-Thanathan. Cut to the chase, her checks were always late and they were always getting angry calls from her because the computer form kept running out of spaces for her last name! I think my friend would have appreciated this law here, back then.
Ich bin ein Ballooner
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
Catalina Matalina Rubensteiner Wallendeiner Hogan Logan Bogan
1) It’s not the government’s business to approve of what you name your child.
2) The hyphenated name ridiculousness led to this foolishness.
Former chancellor Otto Eduard Leopold Fürst von Bismarck-Schönhausen would probably not have approved.
The you could move back and change it to Dociousaliexpiisticfragilcalirupus.
Gunter Gleiben Glouten Gloeben
lol
“Schickelgruber!”
—Curley
I agree with this. No one should have long or weird names.
A number would be sufficient./s
From the country that gives us this word: Hoechsgeschwindigkeitsbegrenzung meaning “maximum speed limit”.
Even better. Touche.
This man died fighting the Germans in the Great War (WWI):
Captain Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache of the Leicestershire Regiment
Well, I think big government is a very bad thing. I don’t think they have the right to dictate people’s names.
DU VEIRDEST EINE KRANKENSCHWESTER BRAUCHEN!
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