A family in New Zealand won a battle with the local registrar’s office after they were initially urged against trying to name their 4-month-old son ”Lucifer”.
The name ”Lucifer” is popularly used to refer a devil or satan.
Mr Dan Sheldon and his wife Mandy were denied access to registration papers after they mentioned the name.
“We were excited to go and get him registered, but the woman looked at us in utter disgust,” Dan recalled to a UK tabloid.
“She told us he would never be able to get a job, and that teachers wouldn’t want to teach him,” he added.
“She even told us that it was illegal to name a child that in New Zealand and that maybe we could name him something else but refer to him as Lucifer at home.”
Dan said he had explained to the official that they were “not religious people, and Lucifer in Greek means ‘light-bringer’ and ‘morning’ but she wouldn’t listen.”
After the back and forth between the parties, the family was eventually asked to leave the room while the official checked to see whether the infant could be named Lucifer, one of many names used to refer to Satan.
However, a few moments later, the Sheldons got their wish, and their baby boy was officially registered as Lucifer Sheldon.
“Eventually she did it, but it was through gritted teeth,” Dan said. “Honestly, we just thought it was a nice name … a unique one. We didn’t expect to get so much grief about it.”
Between 2001 and 2013, a total of six sets of parents in New Zealand have asked to name their child Lucifer, to no avail. According to the New Zealand Herald, the island nation added Lucifer to its list of banned names in 2013.
Some other rejected names include Christ, Messiah, Royale, varied spellings of Justice and any names having symbols or brackets within them.
