Workaholic Dad

The saga about naming our little one continues. It has been 6 weeks since I sent an email to the city’s register’s office asking them to review their decision not to allow us to call our daughter Mackenzie Skye. I decided yesterday that I had enough of waiting for a reply and  contacted the relevant person again to ask if maybe she had overlooked (yeah right) my email. I attached my previous email which gave a multitude of links which prove that a)Mackenzie is a real name and b) that in the country of our heritage it is a common girls name.

To my surprise I got an email early this morning from the “head” of the registries office. It is in German, but I feel that I need to paste it in here:

Sehr geehrter Herr xxx,

meine Kollegin Frau xxx hat Ihnen nun in mehren Schreiben mitgeteilt, dass der Standesbeamte sich bei der Anzeige der Vornamen darüber vergewissern muss, dass dem Kind keine Vornamen erteilt werden die ihrem Wesen nach keine Vornamen sind und dass für “Knaben nur männliche und für Mädchen nur weibliche Vornamen gewählt werden”. Lässt ein Vorname Zweifel über das Geschlecht des Kindes aufkommen, so ist zu verlangen, dass dem Kind ein weiterer, den Zweifel ausschließender Vorname beigelegt wird. Da sowohl der Vorname “Mackenzie” als auch “Skye” diese Zweifel aus hiesiger Sicht nicht ausschließen, möchten wir Sie bitten, Ihrem Kind zu gegebener Zeit einen dritten Vornamen beizulegen.

Sollte Ihr Kind in Hanau zur Welt kommen und das hiesige Standesamt müsste die Geburt beurkunden, so würden wir eine entsprechende Beurkundung ggf. auch schriftlich ablehnen.

Sie haben selbstverständlich dann die Möglichkeit, den Standesbeamten gem. § 45 Personenstandsgesetz (PStG) durch das Amtsgericht anweisen zu lassen eine entsprechende Beurkundung vorzunehmen.

Wir möchten Sie jedoch bitten, auch im Interesse Ihres Kindes, die von Ihnen beabsichtigte Vornamensgebung nochmals zu überdenken.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Werner <xxx>

Standesbeamter

Now, what is he trying to tell me here – let’s examine this letter piece by piece:

1) My colleague has emailed you several times that the names can not be used – uhm, no… she sent me one email, I responded once and asked her to review about a dozen references to prove that Mackenzie is predominantly a girls name. No response from her since then. On a funny aside, their book of names was compiled in 1988.

2) Mackenzie and Skye are considered Unisex names in Germany and can not be used – I don’t care what they say they are, afterall it is common for Boys to have the second name Maria here. Also, Mackenzie was the 22nd most popular girls name in the US last year – for boys it was somewhere in the range of 900 to 1000th most popular.

3) If you want to have the kid in this town, we will deny the name – Ok well – perhaps time to contact the registry office in other towns nearby. We are only minutes away from about 10 towns with first rate hospitals – doesn’t hurt to call around and see what other register’s offices say. There is no law that requires them to use a specific list afterall.

4) You can go to court if you want to fight us on this – § 45 Personenstandsgesetz (PStG), good to know… if he hadn’t mentioned that I would have probably given in for lack of knowledge.

5) “We would like to ask you, in the interest of your child, to pick different names for her.” – Who the fuck are you to judge what name is right for my kid?!?!?

Well, my response to them “FUCK YOU” – of course I worded it differently when I called the guy back asking for clarification. When I asked him if they do this game with other foreign names (for example Turkish, Russian, etc.) he plainly stated “NO”. Ergo, this little toadlicker is discriminating against US citizens and names originating from the english language. I am just glad I work at a brokerage – every call is taped.

The Mrs. called the US embassy to check if there was any help they could provide in the matter. The person to handle those requests wasn’t there, but I found it encouraging that the switchboard operator wasn’t surprised by the nature of the call. In fact, she said that they received many such calls. Perhaps that is an encouraging sign and they may actually be able to provide us with some assistance in the matter.

If they can’t help I fully intend to get a lawyer to take care of this buerocratic absurdity. I am outraged by the tone of voice and plain disintert towards US citizens – something that unfortunately has been a growing issue here. I might just have to call the Bild Zeitung to run an article about this issue.

We’ll see how this saga turns out – unfortunately after googleing the issue, I have come across a ton of people that have to deal with power tripping civil servants dictating which name works and which doesn’t. Personally, I am not amused at all – afterall, these people are payed to protect the interest of the people, not control their lives.