Your child: A Prince?

Court decision permits free name-giving. 

• A benchmark case won by parents of a boy that they wanted to name "Prince" (in Swedish, "Prins") has opened the doors for a child to be called just about anything within reason and good taste. The Swedish Tax Authority (Skatteverket) lost their plea in a Västervik, Sweden, appeals court last week which they had filed by right of their ability to determine the appropriateness of names given to children. As it stands now, so long as the child's name does not attempt to misidentify the person - such as would be the case if the infant were Christened "Doctor" or "Professor" - Swedes are free to be creative with newborns' first names.