What’s in a name?

A 15-year-old Icelandic girl is suing to keep her own name. Blaer, meaning “light breeze,” is apparently not acceptable, according to the Icelandic government. Why? Because the word “takes a masculine article” and is therefore not one of the 1,853 female names that parents can choose from when naming their girls, according to an Associated Press report.

Yes, it’s true—Iceland has a name bank. There is one strictly uniform account of female and male names from which parents are allowed to withdraw—no exceptions. Blaer’s mother found this out the hard way when the state issued her daughter a passport with the name “Stulka,” or “girl.” So now Blaer is suing for the right to be known by her name and not her gender.

Undoubtedly, this is a traumatic experience for the 15-year-old, but you can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. When you consider the recent story of a baby who was named Hashtag (though it was never confirmed as legitimate), “light breeze” seems heavenly in comparison.

You might think Iceland is just a strange country with some very outlandish naming practices (probably had something to do with its economic collapse in 2008), but it’s not alone. At least five other countries, including Germany, Denmark and Sweden, have restrictions on what a child can be named. In Germany, you must be able to tell the gender of the baby by its first name, ABC News reported. In Sweden, the name cannot cause “offense or discomfort to the one using it.”

Our celebrities would have a horrible time over there. Sadly, Beyonce wouldn’t have been allowed a Blue Ivy, or Gwyneth Paltrow her little Apple. And Frank Zappa’s lucky kids, Dweezil and Moon Unit, would have been stuck with something normal like, well, anything but their actual names!

Having a name registry would be unheard of over here. Yet, as ridiculous as it might sound, is it really that bad an idea? With names getting weirder and weirder by the year, who’s looking out for the innocent little bundles of joy who’ll soon be crying from all the bullying their names will garner them? It’d be kind of nice to know that my mother couldn’t call me Facebook or Like—oh, snap, someone already thought of that.

With the freedom that comes with all our rights, sometimes I wonder if it’d be such a bad thing if we had fewer choices—if the world would end if we had to choose a name from a list. Would we feel robbed? Sometimes I wonder if our inexhaustible emphasis on our “rights” hasn’t made us the insatiable consumers we’re always complaining we’ve become.

There’s something strangely comforting about a country’s desire to protect children from ridiculous parents. We could use more of that. It’s not just that, though: Icelandic naming conventions determine that people are known by their first names—last names aren’t passed down within the family. For example, if you’re a girl and your father’s name is Peter, your last name would be Petersdottir—Peter’s daughter—and if you were a boy it would be Petersson—Peter’s son.

Further, the phone book lists people by their first names, and according to the Associated Press report, even the President, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, is known as simply Olafur. Some might mourn the loss of a lineage, and yet, on the other hand, the power that has historically been associated with rich and powerful family names would be gone. A Rockefeller wouldn’t be relevant just for being a Rockefeller—or a Kardashian, for that matter.

On the one hand, it’s only a little ridiculous that a girl should have to sue to choose her name. On the other hand, it’s just as ridiculous for a kid to have to explain why her parents named her Hashtag (and to do so within 140 characters or less).

There’s a lot to be said for moderation, and sometimes I think fewer choices would do us a world of good. Just ask the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.