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I'm 100 percent with you, Daividh, about telling guvmint where they can put their dictates. And I wonder whether the issue of what parents choose to name their children may someday come under the same line of fire as the issue of whether or not spanking is to be considered child abuse. (Personally, I am not an advocate of spanking -- unless it's being done between consenting adults.)

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I think that any parent in the U.S. and the majority of European countries (I'm ruling out certain cultures here where it's customary to tag an unpleasant name on an infant in order to make the child less attractive to demons) who is seriously contemplating a name like "Shithead" for his/her unborn child is already going to be exhibiting other signs of instability -- signs which shouldn't go too easily unnoticed by the rest of society.

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The pregnant woman may be smoking, drinking, or shooting crank. The father-to-be may be abusing the family pet.

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My point is this: The abuse -- and potential for abuse -- will have begun long before this child is born and named. Society has to be able to identify toxic parents before they even get to *be* parents.

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Never mind expending energy and resources in compiling official lists of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" baby names, or hiring prosaic bureaucrats to determine for the rest of us what's "silly" and what's "stylish". That stuff is nonsense. A child about to be born to parents who are probably already showing their resentment of that unborn child in other ways, is going to need far more substantial protection than a visit from the Name Police.

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-- Nanaea
P.S. Andrea? "Zero" ain't such a bad name for a kid if one is fondly remembering Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel. :)