Funniest Name Changes by Individuals
Have you ever wanted to adopt an unusual name? If you did take a bizarre name, you would essentially be forcing others to say it aloud when they refer to you. Some people want to adopt the names of celebrities, historical figures, or even mundane items, perhaps to identify with the person or something the person or item represents. Others want to assume names made up of characters and symbols that don't even form coherent words. Although the law usually rejects such off the wall names, they make for interesting reading and perhaps some insight into how we define who we are.
One strange case of a man changing his personal label occurred in California in 2006. The petitioner urged the court to allow him to change his name, Darren Lloyd Bean, to Darren QX Bean! The petitioner preferred others to pronounce his name by raising the pitch and volume of their voices as the exclamation point suggests, and his friends had already been pronouncing it that way. The California Court of Appeals permitted Bean!'s request because other punctuation marks, such as hyphens, apostrophes and tildes, are not rare, and similarly to the €!€ at issue, they aided others in pronunciation. The court even noted that in a few cases state courts permitted name changes that included periods (.) and spelled an internet domain name (e.g., a case in Virginia where the petitioner successfully changed her name to €GoVeg.com€ to bring attention to her employer, PETA).
Perhaps ratcheting up the weirdness a notch, a New Jersey woman applied to change her name to the single word €Koriander€ in 1996. She explained that she had copyrighted music under the pseudonym €Kori€ and believed the expansion to Koriander suited her in her role as an artist. The court considering her application noted that adopting a singular name can confuse official records and make people difficult to locate, even increasing the likelihood of fraud. Nevertheless, the court granted her request upon finding that an occasional singular name would cause agencies and institutions insignificant inconvenience because enough additional identifying information existed, like Social Security and driver's license numbers. Koriander did not elaborate on how using the name of an herb that tastes great in fresh salsa and Latin dishes relates to her identity as a musician, but courts do not require a more detailed justification. Her new name would make more sense if she were a chef whose signature was to use tons of coriander, but I digress.
In another New Jersey case, an apparently free spirited marijuana activist petitioned a court to change his name to his website: NJWEEDMAN.COM. The court rejected his request as it claimed that granting it would endorse illegal activity and lead to name changes such as €cocaine man.€ I'm not sure whether I agree with the court's reasoning, but it would certainly be off-putting to meet Ms. CrystalMeth while waiting in line at the grocery store.
One strange case of a man changing his personal label occurred in California in 2006. The petitioner urged the court to allow him to change his name, Darren Lloyd Bean, to Darren QX Bean! The petitioner preferred others to pronounce his name by raising the pitch and volume of their voices as the exclamation point suggests, and his friends had already been pronouncing it that way. The California Court of Appeals permitted Bean!'s request because other punctuation marks, such as hyphens, apostrophes and tildes, are not rare, and similarly to the €!€ at issue, they aided others in pronunciation. The court even noted that in a few cases state courts permitted name changes that included periods (.) and spelled an internet domain name (e.g., a case in Virginia where the petitioner successfully changed her name to €GoVeg.com€ to bring attention to her employer, PETA).
Perhaps ratcheting up the weirdness a notch, a New Jersey woman applied to change her name to the single word €Koriander€ in 1996. She explained that she had copyrighted music under the pseudonym €Kori€ and believed the expansion to Koriander suited her in her role as an artist. The court considering her application noted that adopting a singular name can confuse official records and make people difficult to locate, even increasing the likelihood of fraud. Nevertheless, the court granted her request upon finding that an occasional singular name would cause agencies and institutions insignificant inconvenience because enough additional identifying information existed, like Social Security and driver's license numbers. Koriander did not elaborate on how using the name of an herb that tastes great in fresh salsa and Latin dishes relates to her identity as a musician, but courts do not require a more detailed justification. Her new name would make more sense if she were a chef whose signature was to use tons of coriander, but I digress.
In another New Jersey case, an apparently free spirited marijuana activist petitioned a court to change his name to his website: NJWEEDMAN.COM. The court rejected his request as it claimed that granting it would endorse illegal activity and lead to name changes such as €cocaine man.€ I'm not sure whether I agree with the court's reasoning, but it would certainly be off-putting to meet Ms. CrystalMeth while waiting in line at the grocery store.
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