Popular and Unpopular Names

[alice_loves_cats]

<<<long discussion on names>>>

I have a book called "The Amazing Fact-a-day Fun Book". One of the 
amazing facts goes something like (I paraphrase): "Until 1972, 
parents in France had to choose a name for their children from a book 
authorized by the state!" 

Right. So, in Hungary, in 2003, parents STILL have to choose a name 
for their child from a booklet authorized not by the state, but by 
the national language comittee sorta-thing. Reading about people 
inventing names fot their kids, I'm always amazed. There are about 
1600 girl's names and 1200 boy's names in the booklet. 

If you want something different, you can appeal to the comittee, but 
there are certain basic principles that cannot be crossed. One of 
them is that you have to spell names phonetically. No "Jennifer"s, 
however much we want them, it'll have to be "Dzsennifer", which is 
phonetic Hungarian for the same thing. Doesn't it look awful that 
way? And a lot of people still choose it! :-)

It makes the spelling thing much easier. But it still leaves the 
surname. Especially for "foreign" names like mine (McLean) it's an 
endless spelling game. But hey.

Lotsa love from Aliz (Alice in English)