Love Across Borders

Saturday, August 26, 2006

明 安 vs Tax Authority 1-0

My wife and I have given all our children both a western and a Chinese name.
明安 this is one of my son's Chinese names. The meaning of the name is; bright, brilliant, clear, peacefull and calm. Does it provoke you at all?
Ming Ann is how it is spelled out in English. Does this name provoke you at all?

I hope it doesn't, but I can not be sure, because when my wife and I wanted to register this name at the Swedish national registration unit (a unit within the Swedish tax authority) we had some problems.


The following is a true story and it happened in Sweden the year 2001.

The Swedish name law says in short: "A name can not be given if it can be interpreted as offending or lead to suffering for the child."

The civil servant woman, at the national registration unit, in a nearby town to where we lived, had a problem with our son's name and disagreed to register with reference to the Swedish name law. Her motivation was that it is offending and can lead to suffering for a boy to be given the typical Swedish girl's name, Ann.

My wife and I were surprised and upset over the decision from the registration unit. I wrote a letter to file an appeal.
The civil servant was stubborn and replied saying that the tax authority had no intention at all, to change the decision.

Our next possibility was to appeal to the city court in our district. We did that with a second letter, explaining once again, that Ming Ann is a Chinese name, given to boys and should not be confused with the Swedish name Ann, despite the similarity in spelling and pronunciation. We also strongly claimed to have the right to give our son a Chinese name as well as a western name since his roots are in both these ethnic origins.
We also highlighted that our son's looks has Chinese features which also may lead to suffering, and we wondered if the tax authorities disapproved to that too?!

A few weeks later one of the local newspapers called and wanted to take a photo of our son and ask some questions about his name. The next day, another local newspaper called and asked the same. Surprised over the media interest I asked; what is so interesting about our son's name?
"Oh," said the journalist, "you just won over the tax authorities in the city court. That is very unusual and it is important for the public to know!"

4 Comments:

  • Händelsen 2001 är kanske ett typiskt uttryck för svensk byråkrati i förening med att Staten kommit att ta över de enskildas och familjens ansvar i samhället. Staten har sedan årtionden tagit över. Det måste vi hjälpas åt att få rätsida på. Det finns mycket fascinerande att avhandla om på detta område...

    Hoppas Ming Ann inte behöver utstå något statligt övergrepp likt det 2001. Det var mycket glädjande att hans föräldrar hade kapacitet att agera så att affären kunde få ett lyckligt slut.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:53 PM  

  • Now that is some history to tell your kids when he has grew up.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:06 AM  

  • Oh this is news. You did the right thing to appeal. So how did the press get to know of your appeal?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:46 PM  

  • cool.

    since the posted was in august, it is about 1 month ago, how is the progress?

    By Blogger Carmen, at 1:42 PM  

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