Numerous royal titles, religious references and punctuation marks were among the children’s names rejected over the past decade.
Justice was the most popular disallowed name, followed by Princess, King, Prince and Royal.
A child and family psychologist told Fairfax Media she had even seen children named after illicit drugs and warned parents should be more careful about stigmatising them.
An Internal Affairs Department report shows 350 names were rejected in the 10 years ending June 30, 2011.
Forty-nine people tried to name their child Justice, along with alternate spellings Juztice and Justus, Fairfax Media reported.
Religious references Messiah, Christ, Bishop, Saint and Lucifer were also rejected, along with Mafia No Fear, Anal, V8, single letters, Roman numerals and punctuation symbols.
Names cannot be banned, however the Internal Affairs Department says they have to fall within the bounds of the law; they can be no more than 100 characters, use an unearned title, or be offensive to the general public.
"A name can be rejected if it might cause offense to a reasonable person, or if it is, includes or resembles an official rank or title, or if it is unreasonably long. So, one couldn't, for example, register a swear word as a name for their child or couldn't, without adequate justification, register a name of Justice, Colonel or Royal,” says deputy registrar-general Ross McPherson.
The rejected names list follows the release of the most popular names for 2011 – Liam and Ruby – earlier this week.
Top 10 rejected names (July 1, 2001 to June 30,2011)
- Justice (49 rejections)
- Princess (24 rejections)
- King (21 rejections)
- Prince (20 rejections)
- Royal (12 rejections)
- Duke (7 rejections)
- Bishop (7 rejections)
- Major (6 rejections)
- J (6 rejections)
- Lucifer (6 rejections)
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