The World's Weirdest Baby Name Bans

Saudi Arabia announced this week that it was considering banning parents giving their children names including Alice, Elaine, and Linda, deemed to contradict the conservative kingdom's "religious or cultural norms".

Some of the 50 names on the list have been banned for contravening Saudi's literalist interpretation of Islam, with Abdul Nasi, which means "worshipper of the prophet", now prohibited as only God can be worshipped in the eyes of clerics.

Others, such as Malika (Queen) and Amir (Prince), have royal meaning that could be regarded as a usurpation of social status in a rigidly stratified society, where political authority is held by an aristocratic elite.

Others, though, are more baffling. It is difficult, for instance, to see how names such as Sandy could possibly signify an intent to defy the social or religious order.

Here, IBTimes UK looks at five of the strangest banned names in history.

1. 4Real was one of 77 names recently banned by the government New Zealand for being too bizarre or offensive. Other included Lucifer and Anal.

2. Venerdi (Friday) – an Italian couple who wished to name their child after the character from Robinson Crusoe was prevented from doing so by a court in 2008, which ruled that it would expose the boy to "mockery" and was associated with "subservience and insecurity".

3. Burger King. In February the Mexican state of Sonora banned 61 names it claimed were "derogatory, pejorative, discriminatory or lacking in meaning", after a study found names including Hitler, Harry Potter and US Navy used in local registry offices.

4. Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116. In 1996, a Swedish couple were prevented using this seemingly random string of letters and digits to name their child. They claimed it was a protest against Sweden's notoriously strict laws on naming a child, which potential names having to be approved by tax authorities, and was pronounced Albin. Other names ruled illegal in Sweden include Metallica and IKEA.

5. Daemon. A French couple who recently named their child after a character in the Vampire Diaries faced prosecution from French authorities. France scrapped its saint-strewn list of approved names in 1993, but authorities can step in to which can step in 'when a name, or a combination of names, is considered contrary to the interests of the child.'