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Kanye West Couldn't Call His Son Saint in New Zealand

Heaven-Princezz-Star, Zdiam-Bishop and the Roman numerals ‘II’ and ‘III’ were among the other names declined by the Department of Internal Affairs last year.
The strange names rejected by New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs
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The Department of Internal Affairs has released the 66 names they rejected last year—those young ones don’t know it yet, but boy they will be grateful. The long and bizarre list is flooded with royal titles, religious denominations and even military ranks.

The most popular rejected names were King and Royal, closely followed by Prince—clearly, Kiwi parents think their newborns are royalty. In fact, three parents tried to name their baby Royalty, along with variations like Royality, Royelle, Roil, Rhoyal-Kahurangi and Royale-Bubz.

Other parents were more subtle and wanted to name their kids after the Roman numerals ‘II’ and ‘III’. Some parents, though, thought their wee ones were up there with the almighty powers and worthy of names like Allah, Emperor, Emprah and Messiah. Other notable submissions included Princess-Dixie-Rose, Kyro-King, Gunner, Zdiam-Bishop and Heaven-Princezz-Star.

Regardless of where the parents are from, if the baby is born and registered in New Zealand, they must stick to the country’s naming rules.

Jeff Montgomery, registrar-general of births, death and marriages, said the restrictions were put in place to stop Kiwi babies having ridiculously long or unpronounceable names, ones that unjustifiably resemble an official title, or names that cause offence.

"For example, you'll need to rethink swear words, names of more than 70 characters, numerals or anything unpronounceable—like a backslash or a punctuation mark. There's no problem if you want to give your child a spelt-out number or even a silly name, but remember your child has to live with it.''