Parents Win Battle To Give Their Child Devil’s Name

A British couple have succeeded in winning their battle to give their four month old son the devil’s name. Officials tried in vain to change their mind, but the parents stood firm in their decision.

Dan and Mandy Sheldon went to register their son’s name last week with officials trying to shut them down, The Sun reported.

The 37 year old plant hire company boss, lodged an official complaint over the treatment they received at their local office in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

He said: “We were really excited to go and get him registered but the woman looked at us in utter disgust. She told us he would never be able to get a job, and that teachers wouldn’t want to teach him. I tried to explain that we are not religious people, and Lucifer in Greek means ‘light-bringer’ and ‘morning’ but she wouldn’t listen. She even told us that it was illegal to name a child that in New Zealand and that maybe we could name him something else but refer to him as Lucifer at home.”

While officials checked to see if the name Lucifer was acceptable, the couple were asked to leave the room. “We were gobsmacked with her behaviour,” Dan said.

“Eventually she did it, but it was through gritted teeth. Honestly, we just thought it was a nice name … a unique one. We didn’t expect to get so much grief about it.”

Derbyshire County Council responded to the couple’s accusations by explaining they were just doing their job: “We apologise if they were offended but it is the job of our registrars to advise in these matters as sometimes people are not aware of certain meanings or associations around certain names.”

While the UK have very few legal restrictions for names, other countries have stricter rules. New Zealand for example added Lucifer to its list of forbidden names in 2013, while Australia doesn’t allow any names that are considered obscene, too long, misleading or have royal, political, law enforcement, military or religious titles such as Colonel, Saint or Princess.

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