⚖️ Baby Naming Rules by Country
Choosing a name is one thing. Getting it into the register is another, and the rules differ more than most parents expect. Denmark keeps a list of approved names. Italy will not let a boy carry his living father's first name. Norway gives you six months and hands the child its mother's surname if you miss the deadline. The Netherlands gives you three days.
These pages set out, for each of the thirteen countries covered on this site, what the law requires, who decides, how long you have and what happens if the registrar objects. Each statement links to the official source it came from.
Along the way a few widely repeated rules turned out not to exist. Germany dropped its requirement that a first name reveal the child's sex in 2008. Spain's equivalent rule went out with the registry act it belonged to. California never passed the law that supposedly permits accents on its birth certificates from 2027. Those cases are flagged on the pages concerned.
🇦🇹 Austria
Austria puts its naming rule in one paragraph of the civil status act. The wording is narrower than the summaries you will read elsewhere: the first name must not contradict the child's sex, and anything not customary as a first name is refused. There is no statutory limit on how many names you may give.
Deadline: Birth notified within one week; court involved after 40 days without a declaration · Read the rules for Austria →
🇩🇪 Germany
Germany has no naming act at all. What exists is a registration procedure, a duty to protect the child, and one constitutional court decision that removed the rule almost every guide still repeats.
Deadline: One month from birth to determine the first name · Read the rules for Germany →
🇨🇭 Switzerland
Switzerland regulates first names in a single sentence of an ordinance. There is no list of banned names, no limit on how many you may give, and refusals are rare enough that a whole canton may see only isolated cases in a year.
Deadline: The birth is reported within three days · Read the rules for Switzerland →
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
The United Kingdom regulates when you register, not what you choose. The deadlines differ between Scotland and the rest of the country, and the official guidance on registering a birth sets no restriction on the first name itself.
Deadline: 42 days in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; 21 days in Scotland · Read the rules for United Kingdom →
🇫🇷 France
France abolished its approved list in 1993. Parents now choose freely, and the only check comes afterwards: a registrar who thinks a name is against the child's interest refers it to the public prosecutor, who can take it to a family judge.
Deadline: The birth declaration is made shortly after birth at the town hall · Read the rules for France →
🇮🇹 Italy
Italy has the most detailed naming restrictions of the thirteen countries on this site. A child may not be given the same name as a living father, brother or sister, a surname may not be used as a first name, and the name has to match the child's sex.
Deadline: Declared at the hospital or at the comune shortly after birth · Read the rules for Italy →
🇪🇸 Spain
Spanish law sets exactly three limits on a first name, and they are shorter than the restrictions most guides describe. The rule about names that confuse the child's sex belonged to the old registry act and did not survive into the current one.
Deadline: Hospitals report within 72 hours; otherwise ten days · Read the rules for Spain →
🇳🇱 Netherlands
Dutch law gives the registrar two grounds to refuse a first name and no others. The tighter constraint for most parents is the deadline, because the birth has to be declared within three days.
Deadline: Three days after the day of birth · Read the rules for Netherlands →
🇸🇪 Sweden
Sweden rewrote its naming law in 2016 and made it markedly more permissive. Parents have three months, the tax agency decides, and a refusal can be appealed.
Deadline: Three months from birth · Read the rules for Sweden →
🇳🇴 Norway
Norway gives parents six months, the longest window of any country on this site, and attaches a specific consequence to missing it: the child takes the mother's surname.
Deadline: Before the child turns six months old · Read the rules for Norway →
🇩🇰 Denmark
Denmark is the only country on this site that maintains an official list of approved first names. Choosing from it is straightforward. Choosing outside it means applying and giving reasons.
Deadline: The child must be named within six months of birth · Read the rules for Denmark →
🇺🇸 United States
There is no American naming law. Birth certificates are issued by the states, and what constrains a name is usually not a rule about names at all but a rule about which characters the state's form accepts.
Deadline: Set by each state · Read the rules for United States →
🇨🇦 Canada
Naming in Canada is a provincial matter, and the provinces differ. Quebec and British Columbia will intervene over a name likely to embarrass a child; most other provinces leave the choice to the parents.
Deadline: Commonly 30 days, and 30 days in Ontario · Read the rules for Canada →