Poor kid.
the initial application to get her daughter, Khaleesi, 6, a passport was denied — with officials telling her she needed Warner Brothers’ approval because it owns the name’s trademark.
This is a lot dumber than I thought. Yes, Khaleesi is a stupid name but it is their official name on government papers. They’re seriously telling her “your daughter can’t use her legal name without permission from Warner Brothers”?
If you bothered to read the rest of the article, you’d know they made a mistake, and later apologised for it.
I don’t know, this level of not knowing what your job is kinda goes past oops sorry.
They still said it. Someone was dumb enough to tell her that in the first place even if it was later corrected.
God help anyone with the last name McDonald!
Old Mc*onald gonna need to lawyer up
IAIA … ooh
Or in this case IA IA IANAL
Old McDonald did WHAT NOW!?!
IANAL - “I am not a lawyer” common abbreviation on message boards
Yeah, I know, I was just making a joke =P Thank you for the clarification though! My joke wasnt clear enough that it was a joje!
The idiocy of naming your kid Khaleesi aside, the UK just decided that a corporation can own your name and prevent you from enjoying the rights of your citizenship.
That’s pretty fucked.
Edit - Apparently they did backtrack. But it’s still amazing that anyone even thought that was a thing.
It seems that there is only two restrictions in the UK on naming a child at birth. That is that it must fit on a single line on the birth certificate and not contain numeric characters except things like ii to refer to the second.
If you want to change your name later in life there is a lot of restrictions but as far as I know copyright enforcement is still not one. You can find a list here if you are interested.
Khaleesi is a nice name aside from the fact that I think it’s a title…
Khaleesi is a title, not a name. In the fictional world of “Game of Thrones,” it means “queen” in the Dothraki language and is given to the wife of a Khal, the leader of a Dothraki tribe. The character Daenerys Targaryen is often referred to as Khaleesi. - chat gpt
Ya… It’s a title.
I’ve had students named Happy, Classic, Diamonds, Epiphany, Scorpio, you name it. I wouldn’t even cock my head to the side with a Khaleesi on my roll sheet at this point.
You name it is the weirdest of them all.
You know the Gilmores?
I once met a female stripper named Adonis.
A-aron?
Classic? Who in the right mind!
Hippies.
There are literally people named “Princess”. Not that I think that does wonders for their life either.
The idiocy of naming your kid Khaleesi aside
It’s nice sounding as a name though, I wouldn’t be in a rush to condemn someone for it. Now when it’s the 5th “unique” spelling of Madison that starts to get a little ridiculous.
It’s a nice sounding name if you don’t know where it comes from. Considering how well known Game of Thrones is it sounds like “I’m sorry your parents are idiots.”
Fair point!
Are you saying they should just use lojban?
Presumably they won’t get sued by IP (“intellectual property”) trolls.
Until they register in that language too
Perhaps you’re correct.
I tried looking into copyright status of Lojban and found nothing.
I’m pretty sure wp:Láadan was released into the public domain.
Láadan word for “queen.”
http://www.laadanlanguage.org/l2e.html
unáhizh
Fwiw, the passport office also backtracked. But now I have a new Internet rabbit hole, so thanks for that!
I dated a girl named Mercedes.
Mercedes is actually an old Spanish name too though.
Mercedes was the name of Emil Jellinek’s daughter, Emil has the idea to develop sports cars, he designed and commissioned cars from an engineering company and named the model-line after her.
The Passport Office reportedly later called Lucy to apologize for the error.
No, they can’t. That’s not how copyright works. Read the damn article.
But how can I be outraged then?
I am glad to hear they’re not officially taking corporate feudalism for a ride.
Regina, Adelina, Cesare, surely there are other names.
Bread.
Zoltan, Rex.
Zoltan?
Isn’t that a race in FTL?
Used to work with a Zoltan.
Rex ~ Regina, but thanks for Zoltan, made me remember Basil by association.
EDIT: And Despina. EDIT2: There don’t seem to be many people called Despot, but Tiran (not Tigran) is a name one can sometimes encounter among Armenians.
Sounds like a really stupid person at the passport place that thinks their smart. Pretty typical.
*they’re
Newsflash there are plenty of stupid people with perfect grammar.
Okie dokie 👌
Bad news for anyone named Jessica.
What’s wrong with passport offices? Here in the states I tried to get my passport in my teen years. I filled all the paperwork paid for it and everything when it came time to get the passport they were just like"you don’t exist your social security number isn’t real" and that’s b******* since my mom had been literally filing taxes with that number as a dependent my entire life. The passport office said tough s*** fax me all your ID information maybe we can do something. So I literally hooked up a fax machine in 2014 and sent everything off but still nothing.
Tl;Dr US passport office told me I’m not a person and took my money anyway.
This is what congress people are for.
I’m not familiar with how voting works in America but like…
Can you vote? I mean it thinks you’re not a person, can non-people vote?
I can and have voted since. The passport office was just on something
A. Call your Congress critter. Part of their job is tracking stuff like this down.
B. Go check with SSA immediately. That can be a big problem later.
The name Wendy didn’t exist until the book Peterpan. Every part of language is made up, even the names.
oh man that’s crazy. I always thought it was short for Gwendolyn.
Yeah but it’s also the parents responsibility to give their child a non stupid name that won’t get them ridiculed their whole life.
Parents being quirky with names is how you end up with kids getting bullied forever.
Edit: Glad to see all the people who weren’t bullied downvoting this. My name isn’t even that weird and I still get made fun of for it. Don’t give your kids stupid names.
Kids will make fun of any name. My name is common in the area of the world I am from, and they bullied me with my name.
Fuck off with this shit that the name is the problem, kids probably just decided to bully because they are terrible little shits whise parents either don’t care, or encourage them.
My point is kids are going to be shitheads regardless. Why would you give them a perfect target?
If your kid is a shithead, there is only one place to place the blame, and its not the kid.
Tell that to the parents who let their kids do whatever they want and will completely flip their shit if anyone dares threaten their “perfect little angel”
To everyone else don’t set your kids up for failure.
Hey, thanks for elaborating on my point.
Because its the parents that I was pointing the finger at.
Agreed on all fronts. Don’t be a cruel parent and give your kid a fucked up name. If you can’t find it on the keychain turnstile in a truck stop, your “cute” name for a kid is causing more trouble than it’s worth.
I have a misspelled common name (and it’s a common misspelling) and every call for every account in my whole life is a PITA.
You aren’t clever or cute, don’t fuck up your kid’s name. Color your hair blue and you be unique, leave your poor child alone, dipshit.
This is the same argument used in the UK to justify school uniforms. That kids would get bullied over their clothes, so let’s just make everyone wear the same thing. I’m wondering how you feel about that
Sorry it was so difficult for you.
I mean I don’t even have that odd of a name but even in adulthood it’s made fun of occasionally.
I can only imagine someone named after some fantasy story.
Hey, maybe realise by your experience that it isn’t the name but shitty people.
That’s half of my whole point 💀
Shit people exist. It’s hard enough when everything’s normal.
Imagine how much worse it would be for some kid with a name that’s actually weird not just slightly.
So why are we letting kids do that?
Have you ever dealt with a bully’s parents? Have you ever even dealt with a bully?
Schools tend to favor bullies. Mainly because their parents are fucking crazy and will threaten all kinds of shit and most normal people don’t want to deal with that.
Some fantasy story that everybody hates now.
Life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue
What about Bread?
No, Bread has always been.
Only it being sliced is new
That’s just not so. J.M. Barrie’s book popularized Wendy as a girls name, but it predates the book by centuries.
I feel like Game of Thrones could have had Harry Potter levels of cultural staying power if they didn’t completely fuck the ending.
I’ve enjoyed house of the dragon but other people have told me it’s too slow
It being slow is exactly why I like it. A focus on characters over plot is sorely lacking in TV these days. Man we were truly spoiled in the aughts and early tens.
People in this thread frothing at the mouth because it’s a title, not a name, must have forgotten about Caesar. And that it doesn’t matter - people call their kids all kinds of weird shit.
You mean Gaius Julius Caesar? Caesar was his last name, aka family name.
Why is this getting downvoted? Its absolutely correct.
His family name was Julius (because he was from the family of the Iulii). Caesar was a title and since Augustus became part of the name when the position was taken up.
Well, technically both Julius and Caesar were his last names, Caesar was an extra name of unknown origin in his family branch. Since him it became a title.
I stand corrected, thanks
Caesar was a title
Caesar became a title after the collapse of the Republic, largely because the Augustine line carried it forward as proof of legitimacy. There was no position of “Caeser” within the Roman Republic, just a family name dating back to Julius Caeser’s great-grandfather.
deleted by creator
Probably that same boot licking employee from Taco Bell(?) now working for the passport office.
They called and said it was a mistake meaning some asshole employee went too far.
Khaleesi, 6, a passport was denied — with officials telling her she needed Warner Brothers’ approval because it owns the name’s trademark.
Typical capitalist brain rot.
Shouldn’t they also use the same bullshit excuse when issuing an ID card? At least make the dumb rules consistent.
I still believe her actual name was Hodor.
Aren’t they aware that the TV series is based on a book series…? If anyone owns the name it’d be George R.R. Martin…
Did he trademark it? Did he sign that away when HBO did the TV series?
Not that it matters for a passport. But it’s entirely likely a media company owns the trademark for a book character rather than the author.
I think it would be more likely that grrm licensed the trademark and IP to HBO/Discovery rather than sell it. But I don’t actually know
https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00917519208
HBO owns it in the UK. Weirdly, I couldn’t find an active entry in the US database.
Thanks for actually doing the research.
The Passport Office reportedly later called Lucy to apologize for the error.
They screwed up, and have admitted they screwed up. Did nobody read the article?
I got half way before the pop-ups became too much.
Fair enough.
Holy shit you weren’t kidding. And I’m on Firefox Focus behind a PiHole with a multi-million blocklist.
Does the WB even own that trademark? You have to manually apply for each one. Also, trademarks are specific to commercial operations and two companies are allowed to share if they aren’t in the same business. I don’t think trademark laws even apply here.
Shouldn’t they also use the same bullshit excuse when issuing an ID card? At least make the dumb rules consistent.
To be fair, ID cards aren’t common in the UK and passports are very common. This is quite probably the first time she’s applied for any form of ID. Not agreeing with it, just saying.
By this logic, everyone named Mickey should be paying Disney a royalty…
Wait shit retract delete delete DISNEY I DID JOT SAY ANYTHING DONT GET ANY FUCKING IDEAS NOW.
Mickey is a real name, though. It wasn’t invented by Disney.
Not that their lawyers would care lmao
Yeah if anyone ever expected copyright law or lawyers to be even remotely logical or sane, they’ve got another thing coming to them…
Disney just announced a new IP, Empire of Love. No relation I’m sure.
OH FUUUUUUUUUU-
This comment has been removed due to a copyright claim by Walt Disney Corporation of America
Are they worried that this 6 year old is stealing the identity of a fictional character? 🤨
The kid doesn’t deserve this, but she doesn’t deserve that name either.
Second of Her Name, Rightful Queen of the Bratz Dolls, The Breaker of Bedtimes…
Nice!
I’m pretty sure we’re going to keep hearing about people with Game of Thrones names a lot over the next few decades lol I know I’ve read a few articles saying that Arya and Khaleesi were the most popular girls names for a few years before the series ended
Arya is a normal name though. Khaleesi was specifically made up title for GoT.
At least Khaleesi sounds pretty normal still. I’ve heard about people naming their kids with names they basically made up so their kid’s is unique or really weird names otherwise. Unfortunately here in the states you’ll hear about some that have named their kid after Adolf and other worse choices.
Hopefully no one named their kid Dickon
Here is a list. Moon Unit is first. Child of Frank Zappa.
I used to work with a guy named Pelvis. I couldn’t bring myself to ask him where the name came from lol
Well with a dad with a name like Frank Zappa, you get what you get and hope for the best.
Could be worse, kid could be named Khaleesi
Zappa’s kids are fine since they’re children of a famous person (not to mention talented in their own right) and have the privilege of not having to live like a normal person with a weird name.
At least Arya is a name; Khaleesi is a title
So is Christ, and therefore Christine and Christopher. Or Rex. Or Duke… Or Earl… Or Lady… Or Baron.
Bishop.
Pope.
Smith.
I’m sure there are more.
Don’t care. Gonna name my firstborn Right Honourable
“Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.”
Smith is a profession more than a title, and is also generally a surname. I’ll give you Christopher and Rex though
most of those aren’t first names
Earl is a real name. However, for this one, they explain in the series that he was supposed to be named Carl like his father, but due to sloppy handwriting he ended up being named Earl
But Earl is a title, as is Carl.
The last three, maybe (though I’m sure you could find someone with at least one of those as a first name), but everything before that are used at least irregularly.
Lemmy needs a confidentlyincorrect
Thank you for pointing this out. It drives me crazy.
At least Arya doesn’t go full speedrun genocidal maniac because the showrunners are bored and think they have Star Wars money coming.
Never name your kid or your dog after a character until the who is over, folks! Cats? It’s fine.
I disagree, as cats are longer lived than dogs; wanna give your dog a stupid name, go for it
This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I have three cats and zero dogs
LOL, it’s more that I’m less concerned finding out a cat is named after a woman who just wanted to watch the world burn, and I presume the cat would be too.
Within the US, “Arya” peaked for baby girls at rank 92 in 2019. 3050 girls or 0.166% of female births were given the name.
“Khaleesi” peaked in 2018 at rank 550 and 0.030% of female births.
I’m assuming other spellings were less common.
This doesn’t make any sense. UPS has trademarked the colour brown, yet I’ve known people with the last name Brown who have been able to get passports.
1a. Folks, before you name your children, don’t make it easy for the big corporations to sue you. Those who “own” (i.e. use the government to suppress your right to free speech) a conlang, be it Dothraki, Klingon, or Tolkien’s language care far more about profit than culture.
In 2012, 146 newborn girls in the United States were named “Khaleesi”, the Dothraki term for the wife of a khal or ruler, and the title adopted in the series by Daenerys Targaryen.[3]
3c. wt:kalisi
Noun
kalisi (n class, plural kalisi)
Alternative form of kalisiamu
Etymology
Borrowed from English calcium.
Folks, before you name your children, don’t make it easy for the big corporations to sue you. Those who “own” (i.e. use the government to suppress your right to free speech) a conlang, be it Dothraki, Klingon, or Tolkien’s language care far more about profit than culture.
Fuck that. My kids have what most people would consider fairly common names, but I’ll name them what I damn well please, and the very last thing I’m going to give a shit about is what some corpo thinks of it.
“I am Drogo Khal, your honor, and these are my two children, Walt Disney and Barbie Mattel.”
