Khaleesi, 6, a passport was denied — with officials telling her she needed Warner Brothers’ approval because it owns the name’s trademark.
Typical capitalist brain rot.
Shouldn’t they also use the same bullshit excuse when issuing an ID card? At least make the dumb rules consistent.
By this logic, everyone named Mickey should be paying Disney a royalty…
Wait shit retract delete delete DISNEY I DID JOT SAY ANYTHING DONT GET ANY FUCKING IDEAS NOW.
Mickey is a real name, though. It wasn’t invented by Disney.
Not that their lawyers would care lmao
Aren’t they aware that the TV series is based on a book series…? If anyone owns the name it’d be George R.R. Martin…
Did he trademark it? Did he sign that away when HBO did the TV series?
Not that it matters for a passport. But it’s entirely likely a media company owns the trademark for a book character rather than the author.
I think it would be more likely that grrm licensed the trademark and IP to HBO/Discovery rather than sell it. But I don’t actually know
The Passport Office reportedly later called Lucy to apologize for the error.
They screwed up, and have admitted they screwed up. Did nobody read the article?
Shouldn’t they also use the same bullshit excuse when issuing an ID card? At least make the dumb rules consistent.
To be fair, ID cards aren’t common in the UK and passports are very common. This is quite probably the first time she’s applied for any form of ID. Not agreeing with it, just saying.
The idiocy of naming your kid Khaleesi aside, the UK just decided that a corporation can own your name and prevent you from enjoying the rights of your citizenship.
That’s pretty fucked.
Edit - Apparently they did backtrack. But it’s still amazing that anyone even thought that was a thing.
Khaleesi is a nice name aside from the fact that I think it’s a title…
Khaleesi is a title, not a name. In the fictional world of “Game of Thrones,” it means “queen” in the Dothraki language and is given to the wife of a Khal, the leader of a Dothraki tribe. The character Daenerys Targaryen is often referred to as Khaleesi. - chat gpt
Ya… It’s a title.
I’ve had students named Happy, Classic, Diamonds, Epiphany, Scorpio, you name it. I wouldn’t even cock my head to the side with a Khaleesi on my roll sheet at this point.
The idiocy of naming your kid Khaleesi aside
It’s nice sounding as a name though, I wouldn’t be in a rush to condemn someone for it. Now when it’s the 5th “unique” spelling of Madison that starts to get a little ridiculous.
It’s a nice sounding name if you don’t know where it comes from. Considering how well known Game of Thrones is it sounds like “I’m sorry your parents are idiots.”
The Passport Office reportedly later called Lucy to apologize for the error.
No, they can’t. That’s not how copyright works. Read the damn article.
It seems that there is only two restrictions in the UK on naming a child at birth. That is that it must fit on a single line on the birth certificate and not contain numeric characters except things like ii to refer to the second.
If you want to change your name later in life there is a lot of restrictions but as far as I know copyright enforcement is still not one. You can find a list here if you are interested.
The kid doesn’t deserve this, but she doesn’t deserve that name either.
Second of Her Name, Rightful Queen of the Bratz Dolls, The Breaker of Bedtimes…
I’m pretty sure we’re going to keep hearing about people with Game of Thrones names a lot over the next few decades lol I know I’ve read a few articles saying that Arya and Khaleesi were the most popular girls names for a few years before the series ended
So is Christ, and therefore Christine and Christopher. Or Rex. Or Duke… Or Earl… Or Lady… Or Baron.
Bishop.
Pope.
Smith.
I’m sure there are more.
At least Arya doesn’t go full speedrun genocidal maniac because the showrunners are bored and think they have Star Wars money coming.
Never name your kid or your dog after a character until the who is over, folks! Cats? It’s fine.
Arya is a normal name though. Khaleesi was specifically made up title for GoT.
At least Khaleesi sounds pretty normal still. I’ve heard about people naming their kids with names they basically made up so their kid’s is unique or really weird names otherwise. Unfortunately here in the states you’ll hear about some that have named their kid after Adolf and other worse choices.
Why the f is a passport office concerned with a trademark. It is a name of a child… it does not infringe.
So, they passport office is concerned that WB won’t approve? ffs.
Right? Like did she have to ask WB for permission to name her kid Khaleesi? Of course not! It’s a kid’s name not a spin off series lol
Sure… Walter is a regular first name, and there’s lots of people with the last name Disney. It’s from “de Ysini”, and lots of people lived and live in the Ysini region. Company is from the French compagnie, from Latin companio, where we also get companion.
So “Walter of Ysini, Friend” AKA “Walt Disney Company” is a perfectly legitimate name.
As is Michael Mouse.
Excluding laws in certain places meant to protect children from a life of ridicule, you can name your child whatever you want.
The issue of trademark, which is what this article highlights, only concerns applications where there is a business conflict. For example, it is normal for an actor/musician/artist to trademark their name as their “brand,” which means I can’t just form a thrash metal band called “Taylor Swift” to profit off of some confused music listeners. And even if my legal name was Taylor Swift, I could still be required to change my “stage name” to something else when promoting myself as an artist to avoid any confusion/conflict with Tay-Tay.
Last I checked, Warner Bros is not in the passport industry, so this is a dumb argument that should never have occurred. If I had to guess, it was probably just some random disgruntled government employee who felt the need to play armchair activist and “punish” a parent because they didn’t like the name they chose for their child.
