It's Friday, I'm in Love

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court has ruled that a couple could not name their son "Friday" and ordered that he instead be called Gregory after the saint whose feast day he was born on. Friday/Gregory Germano was born in Genoa 15 months ago. The parents registered him as Friday in the city hall and a priest even baptised him as Friday -- unusual in Italy since many priests insist that first names be of Christian origin. "We named him Friday because we like the sound of the name. Even if it would have been a girl, we would have named her Friday," the boy's mother, Mara Germano, told Reuters.

When the boy was about five months old, a city hall clerk brought the odd name to the attention of a tribunal, which informed the couple of an administrative norm which bars parents from giving "ridiculous or shameful" first names to children. The tribunal said it was protecting the child from being the butt of jokes and added that it believed the name would hinder him from developing "serene interpersonal relationships." The Germano family appealed but lost their case this month and the story was carried on the front page of a national newspaper on Tuesday (not Friday).

When ordered to change the name, the parents refused and the court ruled the boy would be legally registered as Gregory because he was born on that saint's feast day. "I am livid about this," the boy's mother said. "A court should not waste its time with things like this when there is so much more to worry about. My son was born Friday, baptised Friday, will call himself Friday, we will call him Friday but when he gets older he will have to sign his name Gregory," she said.

You go, girl! If you want to name your child something stupid because you can't think of anything other than to name the baby after the day on which he was born, then you go right ahead. That's your prerogative. By the way, I hear K-Fed is looking to spread his seed some more. Interested?

@

A Chinese couple tried to name their baby "@", claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child, an official trying to whip the national language into line said on Thursday. The unusual name stands out especially in Chinese, which has no alphabet and instead uses tens of thousands of multi-stroke characters to represent words. "The whole world uses it to write e-mail, and translated into Chinese it means 'love him'," the father explained, according to the deputy chief of the State Language Commission Li Yuming. While the "@" simple is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word "at" to sound it out -- which with a drawn out "T" sounds something like "ai ta", or "love him", to Mandarin speakers.

No, it fucking means "at," you freaks. Who do you think you are, Prince? Just stick with a fucking regular name, okay? When he grows up, what's his email address going to be? @@yahoo.com? I'm sure that's not an acceptable email address and he'll be sadly disappointed. Do you really want him to cry because he can't use his name in his email address? CHING CHONG!