OPINION – It isn’t a regular sight to see your child’s name getting rejected by authorities. It happened recently, though, and the twist in the story is that this certain name became known via a widely played franchise. The name we’re going to talk about is Medivh.

„What kind of name is this?” – If this is your question, it’s alright. Medivh is a name known especially by those who play World of Warcraft for a few hours (two, three, or four digits, doesn’t matter). He’s one of the main characters: he opened the Dark Portal with Gul’dan, the leader of the orcs – because of this event, the Dark Legion attacked Azeroth.

Don’t you play WoW? Alright, there’s also Hearthstone – Medivh also shows up in the Warcraft movie, too, where he’s portrayed by Ben Foster.

Newborn

As the Hungarian website 444.hu writes, a happy pair decided to call their son Medivh, as the man in the family likes World of Warcraft a lot, and the woman accepted the nickname Medi. We can say that this name isn’t pulled out of someone’s ample posterior, right? However, Forename Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (yes, that exists, and I’m shortening Hungarian Academy of Sciences to MTA, the Hungarian anagram) decides what name is acceptable and what name is rejected.

Do you want to appeal? That’s too bad; no can do. The Szani family thought that the sister-in-law’s choice of names for her children (Bellatrix, Luna) was unusual, and perhaps Medivh can be accepted, too. They were wrong – the reasoning for the rejection was that Medivh is now a widely used name in foreign countries (yet, Nintendo is… go figure), plus his personality would be harmed in his childhood, as he could get mocked for his name.

No Medivh

Lap 2. Taking World of Warcraft‘s popularity into consideration (there are still millions of players for this MMORPG, even if Blizzard stopped publishing official figures), the Szani duo decided they should try again with detailing Blizzard’s game’s success. Warcraft 3 was also mentioned (2002 – this year was the first time when the Medivh name appeared in the franchise), as well as Warcraft: The Last Guardian book, which was released in Hungary in 2006 – it features a segment of Medivh‘s life…

…and yet, mother and father Szani got no response. They only managed to get an official rejection (and the reasoning) after multiple phone calls. This time around, the oh-so-hated bureaucracy didn’t even send a response letter, and they didn’t change their point of view, either. Because of MTA’s stance, the little boy got a different name, which we don’t know.

Not-Medivh

Lap 3. The Szani family continuously tried to appeal MTA’s decision – they contacted the Research Institute for Linguistics, the Fundamental Rights Commissioner’s Office (shortening it to FRC from now on), and László Lovász, the president of MTA.

In the sea of multiple negative responses, the FRC said that they have no right to appeal the decision, and MTA defended itself by the freedom of scientific research (yes, they did hide behind that reason for rejecting the name Medivh!). The Bureau of Immigration and Citizenship (I hope I don’t have to write more of these down or I’ll puke my monitor down!) also said that there is no place for appealing.

Medi

Lap 4! The Szanis decided to go for the name Medi. This name sounds much more comfortable, doesn’t it? Well, guess what? Another try, another idea rejected! MTA states that while the name Medi is on their list, but it’s the fondled version, a nickname of the name Medard. The Research Institute for Linguistics states that you can only perform birth registration of a nickname if it was historically proven as a used name in the Middle Age.

Zelda

Let me bring up another example that our behind-in-time bureaucrats with tons of paper in their offices should be knowing. Zelda Williams, the daughter of the late actor Robin Williams. Now, the actor named his daughter Zelda because he was inspired by Princess Zelda from The Legend of Zelda. He named his child after a video game character.

But wait! He did not do this in 2016, oh no. He pulled this off in 1989. Twenty-seven years ago. This example shows much Hungary is behind the West. Interesting: in the United States, there was no argument about Robin Williams‘ decision, while 26 years later, in Central Europe, the authorities think it’s not an acceptable name.

Perhaps our bureaucrats should finally learn that video games are a mainstream hobby nowadays, and some people are involved with them as their JOB (Crytek Budapest? NeoCore? I can keep listing developers…).

It’s so sad to see how our culture is behind the 8-Ball. That would not be a good sign if I wanted to name my daughter Tali! (Here we go, another video game example…)

-V-