What's In A Name?

 Your name is one of the few things that you own from the second you are born until the day you die. It defines you as a member of a family unit and your tribal history may even be found in it. Names have been controlled by governments and your name may say whether you have come from a wealthy or working-class family depending on what it is. But names may not be forever.

  People change their names for a variety of reasons, be it marriage, immigration, or a desire to be less connected to the person whose name was inherited. And whatever the rationale, most of these instances make sense to me. But there are some name changes that are so ridiculous that they should be regulated to some degree.

  There are folks who change their identities for reasons of politics or to connect to a celebrity. Steve Kreuscher was given permission today to change his name to In God We Trust because he believes that his new name will foster some sort of Christian unity. At work, people address him as In God. The flaky 59-year-old also plans to change his name several more times in order to reflect his allegiance to his version of the Creator. He plans to use handles such as What Would Jesus Do and No Cross No Crown to confuse the crap out of people. Now in as much as I believe in personal freedom, I think that this is ridiculous and a waste of court time.

  Recently a woman changed her name to Cutout Dissection Dot Com and a British dude changed his name to Happy Adjustable Spanners. I know of a guy who changed his name to Kurt Cobain and subsequently starved himself to death and went to school with a dude named Brick Wahl. Some names are given and some are taken voluntarily.

  There have been instances of children demanding legal changes from bizarre titles given by their parents and there really does need to be some sort of way to protect kids from their parents' stupidity. In addition, if I were a judge hearing a case of a dude who wanted to change his nomer to Camo U Flage (yes, someone did this) , I'd be inclined to deny the application purely based on how ridiculous it is. It seems to me that there do need to be limits placed on what one can change their name to or at least the number of times you can alter your identity because it is getting so out of hand.

  Let it come as a notice that if you are my friend and intend on calling yourself Stormhammer Deathclaw Firebrand or None Of The Above I'm going to assume you have lost your nut.