Legal Name Changes #
July 30th, 2008 | In Worth Distraction
The internet’s a place where people often call themselves strange things. In the legal realm, however, a judge has to allow you to take such a name. Eugene Volokh documents some of the most interesting names, and the judge’s ruling:
1. 1069. No dice. The North Dakota Supreme Court (1976) and Minnesota Supreme Court (1979) both say: Names can’t be numbers.
2. III, to be pronounced “Three.” Nope, on the same grounds, said the California Court of Appeal in 1984 to Thomas Boyd Ritchie III. A concurring judge asserted that the problem was that III was a symbol, rather than just that it was a number. Such subtle distinctions are what law is all about.