M’sian government releases official guide on how not to name your kids

How not to name your kids, according to the Malaysian government

Malaysians who want their kids to be the next Batman bin Suparman may find themselves disappointed. That’s because the Malaysian government released an official guide on how not to name your kids.

On Monday (8 July), the country’s National Registration Department made a Facebook post elaborating on a few of the guidelines.

Source: Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara, Malaysia on Facebook

The department noted that names like ‘MybabyGirl’, ‘Siti Nurtizen’, ‘Sailormoon’, and ‘Ultraman’ may not be seen as valid names.

The naming rules

First, the department advised parents to avoid picking names with negative meanings.

The examples they included were bodoh and busuk — which mean stupid and smelly in the Malay language — as well as ‘evil’ and even ‘skibidi’.

Source: Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara, Malaysia on Facebook

Second, parents are not allowed to include official titles in their children’s names. This means that kids can’t have ‘Dato’, ‘Tan Sri’, or ‘Puan Sri’ as their first name.

Third, they ask that parents avoid names that are hard to spell and pronounce. Finally, the maximum number of characters allowed on a birth certificate is 80.

Netizens poke fun at the guidelines

The guide has since made it to the r/malaysia subreddit page, where netizens immediately took a liking to it.

Many saw it as an exercise to brainstorm unique names, with one creative netizen throwing out ‘Rizzduan’ and ‘Siti Gyatti’.

Source: Reddit

Others were amused that Gen Z slang such as ‘skibidi’ had even made it onto the list.

Source: Reddit

Some even saw the 80-character limit as a challenge.

Source: Reddit

Whatever the case, the tongue-in-cheek guideline post was a massive hit, garnering over 320 comments on Reddit since it was shared on Friday (12 July).

Also read: American woman named ‘Malaysia’ visits M’sia because ‘Malaysia’ is her name

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Featured image adapted from Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara, Malaysia on Facebook and courtesy of Jimmy Conover on Unsplash. Image on the right for illustration purposes only.