What can you name your baby? Naming laws in Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Germany

Three months to apply for a name in Sweden

The child's guardian applies, and the child needs at least one first name and one surname. If you gave birth in Sweden and are registered as resident, a form comes by post. You have three months from the birth, and the first application costs nothing. The rules are in the Personal Names Act of 2016, in force since 1 July 2017.

Miss the surname deadline and the child takes the surname of the parent who gave birth. For the first name, reminders follow, and if you still do not apply you may face a penalty. There is no limit on the number of first names, and you can choose one traditionally associated with the opposite sex.

Changing a first name later cost 250 kronor in November 2026, paid up front and not refunded if the name is refused. For a child under 12, every guardian signs; from 12 to 18, the child signs too.

Swedish law rules out three kinds of baby name

Section 28 of the Personal Names Act rules out any first name that

• may cause offence,
• can be assumed to cause discomfort to the person who will bear it, or
• is unsuitable as a first name for some other reason.

Skatteverket's two examples of the last kind are a name too like a surname and one containing numbers. In April 2018 SVT Västmanland published examples of names Skatteverket had refused, with the agency's reasons.

• Lucifer can be assumed to cause offence and could cause the bearer discomfort.
• Tholle has a meaning that could cause the bearer discomfort.
• Diaz is distinctly a surname, and surnames as first names do not fit Swedish naming custom.
• Åby is a place name and linguistically cannot be a personal name.
• Pysen linguistically cannot count as a name and is used more as a nickname.
• Money Penny was stopped because Money means money.

Swedish courts have approved Q and J as boys' names

The letter Q went through three courts. A couple wanted to call their son Q, after characters in James Bond and Star Trek, they said. Skatteverket refused, judging a single letter unsuitable as a first name, and both lower courts agreed. “The choice of a first name is such a personal matter that the individual must be granted wide freedom of choice,” the Supreme Administrative Court wrote when it approved Q in September 2009. The same day, a woman was allowed to change Ann-Christine to A-C, and a man to add Madeleine.

The 1982 Names Act, in force then, stopped names that were obviously unsuitable. The 2017 law dropped the word “obviously”. “Now all that is required is that the name is unsuitable,” the Administrative Court of Appeal in Stockholm wrote in one case.

In December 2019 the Supreme Administrative Court approved three boys' names under the new law. Ford was not so strongly a surname as to be unsuitable. Of Prins, Swedish for prince and first in the string Prins Vilgot Olov Audan Vilhelm, the court wrote that the royal family could be assumed to be well known, so the name would hardly be taken for a title. For J, it noted that 349 people already had J as a first name, according to Skatteverket, so a single letter hardly broke Swedish naming custom. Two of the five justices dissented on Prins and J, writing in the J case that the Q ruling no longer applied since the “obviously” requirement had gone.

Denmark gives six months and a list to choose from

For a child born and living in Denmark, Finland or Norway, Skatteverket says to contact the authorities there. In Denmark a child must have a first name and a surname within six months of birth, and whoever has custody decides. The name is given at a baptism, where parents can apply verbally in their talk with the priest, or by naming the child without one. A child born in Sønderjylland must be named before being baptised, through the registrar of the municipality where the child lives. Neither baptism nor naming costs anything.

The Danish family law agency, Familieretshuset, keeps a searchable list of approved first names that you can narrow to girls', boys' or unisex names. A name on the list needs no further assessment. Kim and Nikita appear on both the boys' and the girls' list, as they are gender-neutral.

Any other name is assessed, and under Denmark's guidance on names, in force since 1 January 2023, it must be a genuine first name. Titles such as baron and prince are out, as are numerals such as III, so the Prins approved in Sweden would not pass as a new first name in Denmark. The name must be writable in Latin letters, reasonably pronounceable in Danish, and neither unsuitable nor offensive. Among nicknames, Potte has been refused and Stisser, Mulle and Tusse approved.

Unlike in Sweden, a Danish first name may not denote the opposite sex, unless the applicant signs a form stating that the wish stems from an experience of belonging to the opposite sex. Denmark also follows up on the deadline. After five months without a first name, the registrar reminds the parents, then Familieretshuset sets a deadline, and finally the case goes to the police. Failing to name a child in time can be punished with a fine.

Iceland has a names register and a committee for the rest

Þjóðskrá, Iceland's national registry, says a child must be named before six months of age, at a baptism in the National Church or a registered religious or life-stance organisation, or by notifying the registry, one parent filling in the form and the other confirming. Nobody may have more than three first names.

The register Mannanafnaskrá holds every approved Icelandic name. Any other name needs approval, for a fee, from the names committee, mannanafnanefnd, whose decisions no other authority can review.

In the Reykjavík Grapevine's summary, a name must be able to take a genitive ending or have entered Icelandic through use, adapt to Icelandic structure and spelling, and not embarrass its bearer. On 6 and 11 August 2021, the paper reported, the committee made 24 decisions. Bond, Apollo and Blár were approved, the last derived from the masculine noun blár, “blue”, and declined Blár, um Blá, frá Blá, til Blás. Skylar was approved as gender-neutral. Gunnarson, Degen and Welding were refused, and Octavius was accepted as a first name but not a middle name.

In 1998 Björk Eiðsdóttir named her daughter Blær Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdóttir. Only later did she learn that Blær, a masculine word for a light breeze, was not approved for girls, and for fifteen years her daughter was registered as “Stúlka”. Her case rested on a woman born in 1973 who had been allowed the name, and on the women's names Auður and Ilmur, which are also masculine words. On 31 January 2013 the Reykjavík District Court ruled that denying the girl the name was unconstitutional. Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir, a law professor at the University of Iceland, welcomed the ruling, saying it was in line with the constitutional protection of privacy.

Germany wants births reported within a week and leaves names to the courts

Germany's Civil Status Act of 2007 says a birth must be reported within a week to the Standesamt, the register office that keeps the birth register. For a hospital birth, the hospital's operator must report it. The register records the child's first names and surname, and the place, day, hour and minute of birth. First names not given at once must follow within a month, and another Standesamt can take them.

No law lists the permitted first names, says the German names website Baby-Vornamen. The Standesamt decides first, and if it says no, the options are court or another name. A first name has to be recognisable as one. Pfefferminze, peppermint, has been refused, as has the whole sentence Frieden Mit Gott Allein Durch Jesus Christus, while Oleander and November have been registered. The rule is not always applied consistently, the site says.

A mother who wanted to give her newborn son twelve first names, from Chenekwahow and Tecumseh to Henriko and Alessandro, tested how many a child may have. A regional court allowed four of them, Chenekwahow, Tecumseh, Migiskau and Ernesto, as twelve would burden the child considerably. The appeal court in Düsseldorf added Kioma. In January 2004 the Federal Constitutional Court declined to hear the mother's complaint. With no rules on first names in naming law, parents are in principle free to choose, the court wrote, but that freedom ends where it threatens the child's welfare.

In December 2008 a case went the other way. A Hindu couple wanted to name their child just Kiran, a name borne by men and women alike in India. The Standesamt refused because the name alone left the child's sex in doubt, and demanded a second first name to settle it. In the parents' faith, a second first name is simply not possible. The Memmingen regional court sided with them in November 2006, the Munich appeal court reversed that in February 2007, and finally the Federal Constitutional Court overturned Munich. Lawmakers have not decided that a first name must show a child's sex, the court wrote, and the child's welfare requires no such restriction.

Name and time of birth on a birth poster

The German register records both the name and the minute of birth. Both details also appear on a personalised birth poster from Lovely Baby Print, with the date, weight and length, and the baby drawn at their exact birth length, at 1:1 scale. You design your own birth poster on the site. A few years later, the child can stand beside it and see how small they once were.