In Sao Paulo, a baby boy is chortling away, unaware that a court is deciding his fate. If it finds in his father's favour, he is in all kinds of trouble. There may be a law in Brazil against giving your child a name that might cause him to be mocked, but daddy wants to call his son Osama bin Laden. The same father, Osvaldo Oliveira Soares, has form for trying to use babies as political statements. Nine years ago, he was banned from naming a previous son Saddam Hussein.

　　Unlike Brazil, there is no law in Britain that restricts a parent's right to name their child. "It's not for the registrar to say if someone has picked a name they don't think is suitable," says Alison Cathcart, superintendent registrar at Westminster register office. "But if someone is from a different culture and wants to register a name that sounds like a swear word in English then we do advise them of that."

　　"Naming does matter," says Helen Petrie, a professor at the City University of London and a researchersintosthe psychology of naming. "We have stereotypes of what sort of people are behind certain names. There are studies of teachers in primary schools in the US that show they rate children with certain names as less able.

　　"The name is the first thing we find out when we meet someone. If you call your child an unusual fluffy name like Fifi Trixibelle, as did Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, it can make life hard for you - especially if you want to be prime ministerial and are not in the least bit fluffy-headed."

　　There's also the class factor. "Fifty years ago there was no cross-over of names between classes. Now everyone can buy Tatler and see the name Tarquin," says Petrie. "Until the 60s, Tracey was a posh Chelsea name. Now it has a terrible stereotype. I've interviewed some Traceys who find their name a huge burden. However high up they may be in their profession, people hear their name and think they're the cleaner."

　　But no name is entirely safe. Your parents may not mean to mess you up but they can't know what the next mass murderer will be called. They can't necessarily protect you from other children who have a gift for making fun of any name. Sophies will tell you they were called Sofa in school； Theodores get nicknamed Odour. But, if your surname is Graves or Banks, you might reasonably expect your parents to have noticed that Robin had problems.

　　寧愿生壞命 不要改錯(cuò)名

　　據(jù)英國(guó)《衛(wèi)報(bào)》11月7日?qǐng)?bào)道，在巴西圣保羅，法庭正決定一名男嬰的命運(yùn)。如果他的父親勝訴，這名男嬰將在未來(lái)歲月里麻煩不斷。因?yàn)樗母赣H為他取名本。拉登。巴西有法律規(guī)定，父母不可為新生兒取日后引致他/她被嘲笑之名。同是這位父親，9年前曾為他的另一名兒子取名薩達(dá)姆。侯賽因，被法庭頒令禁止。

　　英國(guó)并無(wú)法律對(duì)取名作出規(guī)限。但倫敦威斯敏斯特區(qū)戶籍辦公室主任卡芙卡特說(shuō)，“如果有來(lái)自不同文化背景的父母，為他們的孩子取英語(yǔ)臟話為名，我們還是會(huì)勸止的。”

　　“命名確是一件不容輕率的事，”倫敦城市大學(xué)研究命名心理學(xué)的教授海倫。佩翠說(shuō)。她說(shuō)人是會(huì)受名字影響的，尤其是女孩子。在英國(guó)社會(huì)，人們講究等級(jí)地位。“翠絲”在60年代還是切爾西區(qū)一個(gè)上等的名字，可現(xiàn)在，人們會(huì)假定“翠絲”是清潔女工。如果你想入主內(nèi)閣，就更得小心，不要取一個(gè)花悄的名字。

　　取名確實(shí)是一門大學(xué)問(wèn)，將為人父母者應(yīng)三思而后行。但亦無(wú)名字是百分百“安全”的，因?yàn)橄胂罅ωS富的孩子們總是可以為同伴取各式花名。

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