A girl's fight for her name

A 15-year-old Icelandic girl has won the right to use the name given her by her mother, after a court battle against the authorities.

Blaer Bjarkardottir will now be able to use her first name, which means "light breeze", officially.

Icelandic authorities had objected, saying it was not a proper feminine name.

The country has very strict laws on names which must fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules.

Until now, Blaer Bjarkardottir had been identified simply as "Girl" in communications with officials.

Several countries - such as Germany, Sweden, China and Japan - also restrict names.

In the case of Iceland, it's about meeting certain rules of grammar and gender, and saving the child from possible embarrassment. There is a list of 1,853 female names, and 1,712 male ones, and parents must pick from these lists or seek permission from a special committee.

Similar concerns about child welfare are present in Germany, where a Turkish couple were not allowed to call their baby Osama Bin Laden.

And in China, people have been forced to change their names because they were deemed too obscure.

The UK and the US have much more liberal naming laws.

American parents can pretty much name their child anything. Census records in the 18th and 19th Centuries revealed people named King's Judgement, Noble Fall and Cholera Plague.

There have been 20 people named Noun, 458 named Comma, 18 called Period but only one called Semicolon.