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Speaking of names is it really true than in Sweden you have to get a baby name approved by some government office? How strict is that in practice?

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Speaking of names is it really true than in Sweden you have to get a baby name approved by some government office

Basically. The Swedish IRS is responsible for keeping the register of all Swedish citizens and they have the power to refuse to register a name. The main rule is you are not allowed to give a child a name that can be seen as provocative, insulting or has a high risk of causing the child problems or humiliation in the future. The core legal principal behind is that parents are not allowed to cause their children potential harm with their choice of name and since the child cannot act their own advocate in this matter, the State has to.

Edit: The other type of name you are not allowed to give are names that are considered 'obvious' last names, as well as names that are primarily titles like "King", "Admiral" or "Captain".

And I found this list of all names that have been rejected over the past few years: https://www.motherhood.se/bebis-och-smabarn/namn-man-inte-fa... (scroll down to "Förnamn som fått avslag hos Skatteverket")

Wow, some names on the list seem innocuous. "Masen" for instance. A few others seem fine too.

They would have a field day with a lot of names people give their kids in America. I went to school with kids with names like "Cadillac" which sounds like they wouldn't be allowed there.

Not sure about Sweden, but in Iceland there's a naming committee that has to approve names not already on the approved list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Naming_Committee

It does look like there's a similar thing in Sweden though

To add: I think this is to make sure the name can be declined into the noun cases necessary to make sentences in Icelandic.

I don't know about Sweden, but it is the case in my native Poland.

In fact, I think it's much more common than full liberty in this regard.

As for the level of strictness - it's always a bit arbitrary, and there are no fool-proof guidelines, nor a predefined whitelist.

Generally speaking, however, the name cannot be ridiculous, humiliating, offensive, it must be in a full form (not affectionate) etc.

Among the rejected ones there have been "Rambo" and "Joint".

There were parents who tried "Wiedźmin" (Witcher), to no avail, but they succeeded eventually with a compromise, a slightly altered "Wiedzimin". Not a real name, but kinda sounds like it might be (sort of similar to Lithuanian Giedymin), and by itself not a popculture reference, which apparently was what the office considered frivolous/inappropriate.

It’s sort of true. Strictly speaking, it’s true, but it’s mostly to prevent weird people from naming their kid “X Æ A-12” or “Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116” (yes, really).

In France this goes in front of a judge. Names that seem harmful to the child won't be accepted.

Famous occurrences are "Nutella" (ended up "Ella"), "Megane Renault" (a brand of car, ultimately accepted because it's old enough not to mean anything to kids), "Mohamed Merah" (same name as a terrorist who killed 7).

Evidence shows that some parents are just too dumb to be trusted not to set their child up for ridicule and bullying.

In Iceland, I believe one can’t give the baby a last name not following the -son or -dottir format even if the parents are not Icelandic I believe.

Atleast it was the case until few years back. Not sure it changed recently or they need to go through an approval process.

Apparently the workaround has been to 'move' to Denmark for a couple of days, have your child named and registered in your new home country, and then move back to Iceland.

how can you move to a different country with a newborn child without having any papers for that child?

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