What's in a Name?

Photo: Yuri Kommisarov

Since he was born six years ago, one young Muscovite chappie has been at the centre of a dispute between his parents and the Moscow general register office for births, marriages and deaths (GRO). The parents of “BOCh RVF 260602”, an abbreviation of “Biological Human Object born of the Voronin-Frolov families, on the 26th June 2002”, are adamantly refusing to rename the child, despite the GRO’s refusal to provide a birth certificate and officially register the child under such a name.

Several courts, including the European Court of Human Rights have refused to examine the case. Russia currently has no law that would prevent a child from being given such a name. “This is in the child’s interests,” stated Tatiana Ushakova, deputy director of the Moscow GRO, which has taken the matter into its own hands, “the parents should be thinking about the child himself and how he is to live with such a name, rather than their own ambitions.”

The situation seems to have reached stalemate and the possibility of taking custody of the child in order to rename him as in the case of “Tula does the Hula from Hawaii”, a New Zealand girl with a similarly catchy name, has not been raised. Although in a country where paper documents are everything living without a birth certificate or official registration must be rather problematic, none of the reports that I found noted whether the child was nevertheless able to attend school or receive state medical treatment. I can only suppose that amongst the profusion of metro adverts offering everything from passport registration and university diplomas to medical certificates and driving licences his parents have perhaps found an alternative birth-certificate provider.

(Some excerpts from RIA Novosti.)