Reflections | As Neo-Nazi couple who named baby after Adolf Hitler show, naming a child can be a potential minefield

A neo-Nazi couple in Britain who named their child after Adolf Hitler were recently found guilty in the country’s courts; not for giving their child the middle name Adolf, but for being members of the banned right-wing group National Action.

I have come across at least one Adolf in Hong Kong, a bank employee. I cannot even begin to speculate on the reasons a Chinese person would call himself Adolf, but if he were to sport the same name tag in Europe or North America, he would probably get a stronger reaction than an eye-roll from a few customers.

Many countries have laws that prohibit the use of certain words as personal names. The main reason for not giving parents a totally free hand in naming their children is that certain names can harm kids by subjecting them to ridicule.

To preserve their own culture and traditions, some countries ban names that are considered “too foreign”. In many cases, the application is purely bureaucratic: names that cannot be written or spelt in the country’s language are not allowed. Then, there are names that would cause offence to the larger society. Adolf Hitler, for instance, is banned in Germany for obvious reasons.

Personal names were also subject to certain proscriptions in ancient China, as demonstrated by the custom of “name avoidance” (bihui). Names of important people such as rulers, one’s parents and elders, and venerated historical figures, were considered sacrosanct, and rules existed for the use of the words that made up their names.

For example, the names of reigning emperors and certain dead rulers or sages of great import were not allowed to be used as personal names, not even for divine beings. One of the first Chinese names of the Buddhist deity Avalokitesvara was Guanshiyin, a translation from the Sanskrit name, which meant “the lord who gazes down at the world”.