Russian Officials Should have the Power to Refuse to Register ‘Strange’ Names, Children’s Ombudsman in Tatarstan Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 5 – Irina Volynets, the children’s ombudsman in Tatarstan, says that Russian officials should have the power not to register names that they consider to be strange or likely to cause problems for the children as they grow older and that registration offices should employ linguists and psychologists to make this determination.
    Her idea is attracting attention not just because its adoption would give the Russian authorities further power to homogenize the country but also because it might be used against non-Russian names that the powers that be don’t approve of (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-02-04/v-rossii-predlozhili-sozdat-reestr-razreshennyh-imen-dlya-novorozhdennyh-5315607).
    That would become more likely if Volynets’ proposal were to grow into a list of names that the authorities would permit and thus exclude other names that parents might choose, the likely consequence of allowing the registration offices to make decisions about which names would be permitted and which banned.