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Swedish woman applied to change name to ‘Nazi’

A 28-year-old woman in Sweden has been refused permission to change her first name to 'Nazi' after the authorities deemed the name 'unsuitable', a regional newspaper reports.

Published: 11 September 2018 09:26 CEST
Swedish woman applied to change name to 'Nazi'
According to Skånska Dagbladet, the name was rejected because of its association with Germany's National Socialist Party. Photo: Bengt Olof Åradsson/Wikimedia Commons
The woman, from the village of Tyringe, which is known more for its medieval church than far-right activity, made the application earlier this year. 
 
Ingegerd Widell, the development officer at the Swedish Tax Agency in charge of registering new names, said she could not confirm the story without knowing the name of the woman.  
 
“I would be extremely surprised if anyone would get that name,” she said. 
 
The Swedish Tax Agency, which handles Swedes' applications to change their name, only accepts new names if they do not cause problems for the holder or cause discomfort to others. 
 
According to the agency, before approving a name, its officials check if it could “cause offence, be presumed to cause discomfort for the individual or for some other reason are unsuitable”. 
 
According to the Skånska Dagbladet newspaper, which first reported on the case, the application was rejected because “the word Nazi is a short form of National Socialism and is associated with supporters of Nazism”. 
 
 
Last year, the agency turned down a 26-year-old man who wanted to change his first name to 'Prince', on the grounds that it was “not a word associated with a name”, and in 2011 a man's bid to have 'His Majesty' added to his name was turned down because it could lead to “misunderstandings”.
 
Another man did get to add 'King' to his name – an idea he came up with after a long night out – six years ago. But the Stockholmer, King Oliver, told The Local in 2016 that his family “still calls (him) Oliver”.

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Rome mayor blocks plan to name street after fascist leader

Rome mayor Virginia Raggi is seeking to block a plan to name a street in the capital after Giorgio Almirante, the founder of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI).

Published: 15 June 2018 11:12 CEST
Rome mayor blocks plan to name street after fascist leader
Giorgio Almirante (R) pictured with Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's National Front, in 1985. Photo: AFP

Raggi was reportedly caught by surprise when a majority of politicians from her Five Star Movement and the far-right Brothers of Italy, a descendant of MSI, backed the move in a vote on Thursday.

Almirante established the party in 1946 in dedication to keeping the ideals of dictator Benito Mussolini alive, and led it until a year before his death in 1988. Almirante joined Mussolini’s Fascist Youth Movement at the age of 9.

Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, was also a member of the youth wing of MSI, while the father of Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the Five Star Movement, was an activist for the party.

Meloni’s party celebrated the approval on Thursday as a “historic victory for the Italian and Roman right”.

Raggi has asked Five Star Movement advisors to prepare a motion preventing the naming of streets after fascists or those who exposed themselves as anti-Semitic or racist.

The vote came after Raggi pledged to rename streets currently named after politicians who signed the anti-Semitic Manifesto of Race during the fascist era.

“Rome is anti-fascist,” Raggi declared in January, adding that she hoped the capital could set an example to other Italian cities in removing the names which “represent a shame for our country”.

2018 marks 80 years since the charter was published, preparing the way for the Racial Laws which came into force later in 1938. Under these laws, Italian Jews were stripped of their citizenship and banned from working in certain professions or attending school.