Noah Feldman, Columnist

Naming a Baby Is Hard Enough Without the State Involved

Rules limiting what parents can put on their child's birth certificate are probably unconstitutional.

March 30, 2017 at 5:49 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

You can call me Sleepy.
Photographer: Christopher Furlong

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The state of Georgia is refusing to allow a couple to give their baby the last name Allah -- not because it’s sacrilegious but because the state requires a baby’s last name to be the same as one of its parents’ or a combination of the two. That’s arguably unconstitutional, although it’s not an open and shut question. It also raises the broader question of what it means to name a child legally, and what rights parents have in relation to the government.

It’s critical to keep a distinction in mind: The government has no right to tell you what name or nickname you should use when speaking to your child. That falls within free speech, and probably within your rights to shape your intimate, private associations under the due process clause of the Constitution.