Names coinciding with “national identity”. Orban will decide what Hungarians will be called

On Wednesday, the National Assembly of Hungary adopted an amendment, giving the Ministry of Culture the right to decide what names will be called the children emerging in the country. The justification emphasized that currently legal names, such as Legolasz, they have nothing to do with the Hungarian national identity.

The application was supported by 161 deputies to the 199-person unicamed parliament. 22 people voted against, and one stopped.

In the opinion of the National Assembly, “names are part of the national identity and express belonging to a given nation” and therefore “it is necessary to transfer the decision to them to the ministerial level”.

Until now, the Hungarian Linguistic Research Center decided about the acceptable name list. In the event that parents wanted to give the child an unusual name, they had to apply to the center, which decided to place his possible names in the Hungarian register.

Lajos Kosa, the applicant from the ruling party Fidesz, argued that “although the name is part of the individual identity of each person, it is also part of the national identity.” “After changing the system, we will not at least meet with naming girls olalia or Kandida, and the boys – Orda, Gida or Legolasz,” said the politician.

The Telex portal reminded that in 2024 the Hungarian Linguistic Research Center considered 469 applications regarding names not included in the national register. The list of permissible female names included, among others Emilin, Ajla or Teca, and male: Pipo, Nazira, Tiago or the mentioned Legolasz – a name referring to the figure from the British writer Jrr Tolkien's universe.

The names rejected last year were Dzanszuval, Bimbi, Jesus and Lucifer.

From Budapest Jakub Bawołek (PAP)

JBW/ Szm/