Court tells mother she can’t name girl ‘Cyanide’
A MOTHER has been banned from naming her baby daughter Cyanide in a landmark ruling.
The woman said it was a ‘pretty name’ linked with ‘flowers and plants’, and argued that it should be celebrated as Hitler planned to kill himself with the poison.
When Powys Council found out about her proposed name, they took the case to court. In June last year, a judge stopped the mother from formally registering the unorthodox name.
The woman, who has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, appealed – insisting that preventing her naming her daughter violated her human right to a family life.
However yesterday – in the first case of its kind in the UK – Court of Appeal judges ruled that the mother’s ‘unusual’ choice could harm her child.
Lady Justice King said that nam-
‘A notorious poison’
ing a girl after a ‘notorious poison’ was unacceptable.
She went on to say that ‘even allowing for changes in taste’, Cyanide was an strange name to give to a baby girl.
She added: ‘A name which attracts ridicule will have a deleterious effect on a child’s selfesteem with potentially longterm consequences.’
But she went on to point out that the courts will only intervene to stop a parent naming their child ‘in the most extreme cases’.
Along with her young brother, the baby girl – who is now eight months old – is living with foster parents, who have given her a different name.
Last year a French couple were banned from naming their son Prince William after a judge ruled that the name would lead to a ‘lifetime of mockery’.
Courts in France have also stopped children being named Strawberry and Nutella. And judges in New Zealand had to step in to ban a couple naming their twin babies Fish and Chips.