Name laws in 1804: French civil code influence

Iceland’s naming committee, Germany’s Namensrecht and Japan’s koseki-plus-jinmeiyō system are the atlas’s three famous high-friction examples. Most English-speaking jurisdictions are looser but not lawless. This page is a map of vetoes. It is not legal advice, and it will not smuggle a luck chart into a statute that does not contain one.

What does a naming law usually regulate? Allowed characters, length, offensive strings, sex-marking, surname transmission after marriage, and the procedure for change. German civil-status rules on given names and family names, including child-welfare refusals and detailed marriage/child surname options.

Japan’s family register — the legal source of a person’s name. Given-name characters generally must come from approved sets (jōyō/jinmeiyō). Married couples have been required to share one surname. States can refuse numerals, obscenity or confusing strings, and courts handle adult changes. Friction is lower than Iceland, not zero.