A Stulka By Any Other Name

What’s in a name?  For Blaer Bjarkardottir, it’s six vowels and a butt-load of unpronounced consonants.

“Screw you, Pat! This puzzle is crap!”

Yah, nobody on Wheel is winning that one, but 15 year-old Blaer won the right to call herself that. It is her birth name, but all official Icelandic communication refers to her as “Stulka,” which means “girl.” Blaer is not a government-approved name.

I applaud it. Not Blaer/Stulka/Whats-her-face. She’s unimportant. What is important is a government imposed naming policy.  America needs one. That’s right Frank Zappa. Dweezle?  Really you had to name your kid that?  Fine, that’s a $10,000 fine and an extra $100 every time a federal worker has to type it on a page. Mr. and Mrs. Holder? The next child you name Dick, screw a fine, you get flogged.

Guns don’t kill people, names do.

Ask River Phoenix. Oh, that was drugs. Bad example. The point is, parents go way wacky when naming their children. We all know one or two that we can point to and go, “what were they thinking?”

According to an article on Circa, one Swedish family was fined $680 for naming their son “Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116” pronounced “Albin.” Bravo to the Swedes for throwing the book. I think those parents should also be forced to fill out a book of medical forms and college applications by hand, and then fined an extra $680 for each misspelling. “Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116,” really?  That’s child abuse.

If I made up a statistic, it would point to the horrors acted against children due to atrocities in naming. I would tie it to a graph proving that more children are named than die from any childhood disease.

It’s true, you can look that up!

Before you take the time though, let’s go back to Blaer. There is an important lesson to learn from her case. The reason Iceland upholds a naming law is to preserve cultural identity.  You’re not going to find Hayden born in Iceland, because it means nothing to them. It means nothing to me either. It’s a dumb name, but it is popular here. So is Robert. I do like that one. Iceland isn’t fond. It doesn’t have the right ring.

So what of “Blaer?” Blaer is an Icelandic word meaning “light breeze.” How could the Icelandic government not approve of cultural preservation in a word like that? Apparently Blaer is taken from a masculine article. Iceland does not believe in gender crossing names like Pat, Robbie, Blaer or Sue.

I kind of get it. I mean I wouldn’t name my son Amber, unless that was his stripper name. On the other hand, “Light breeze” has a feminine attribute. I don’t think of a guy when I hear “light breeze.” At least not unless that breeze is a fart, and no, I would never name my daughter “Fart.”

That’s a boy’s name.

It’s a difficult balance, but the Icelandic government did the right thing here by acknowledging Blaer. She sounds like a good girl, fighting for her name. Because, really, who wants to be called Stulka?