In Finland giving siblings the same first name is explicitly illegal.
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2026
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This is no longer the case since 2019
Ok technically if "there are special reasons" they can make an exception, but the default is still that it's forbidden.
what special reasons exist that have been accepted?
"it'll be funny"
"they keep dying on me!"
That actually doesn't require a reason, as the rule only applies to living siblings
I know how to look up the laws, but it isn't clear to me how I could find case law, so I don't know
When I read comments like these, I just have to look them up. It's something that could very well be true and equally, you could be messing with us. Why would they have such a law? What prompted it to be drafted and accepted? So I did a search on the internet and here is what I found.
I don't know Finish so I cannot read up on their law but according to Info Finland (operated by KEHA Centre if their © is to be believed), this article dated to 19.12.2024 states under the header "Child’s name":
Finland has a law on names. According to the law, everyone must have a last name and 1–4 first names. The first names must be compliant with Finnish law. For example, siblings may not be given the same first name.
Maybe people living in Finland know exactly what KEHA Centre is but I don't so I have to look them up. There are two articles on Wikipedia, one in Finish and one in French. The French one has the title "KEHA Centre" while the other one is titled "Centre KEHA". Translating the articles with Firefox's built in translater, it says (in French) "The KEHA Centre is a national agency providing..." and (in Finish) "Keha Centre [...] is a Finnish government agency that supports employment, integration, digitalisation and knowledge".
According to Sumoi.fi, an alternate name for KEHA Centre is "Employment, Development and Administration Centre". (And what is Sumoi.fi? According to them, "The service is being developed by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency", that sounds official.)
Given the evidence I have found, it looks like Info Finland is a legit website and it looks like it is indeed true that your children cannot have the same first name.
The law has an official English translation: https://www.finlex.fi/fi/lainsaadanto/saadoskaannokset/2017/eng/946
Thanks for the link, is says on the second page
A name cannot be approved as the first forename of a minor child, if it is the first forename of a living sibling or half sibling of the person being named, or if it is a name ending in poika ("son") or tytär ("daughter") or a name formed in a corresponding manner, unless there are special reasons for this.
I could have just dumped my link and been done with it but I wanted to do more than provide a statement without a source, since that (no source) was the reason for my comment to being with. :-)
I wanted to screw up the Social Security system
Is this the closest we’ve come to a real life Bobby Tables?
Doing health care software, I've come across a patient with the last name Null.
They are the king of the symbiotes.
With the last name what?
Their last name was an empty string. Pronounced:
I'm sorry, my ears and eyes are both bad, pronounced how?
Oh looks like you got it, right after your question ended.
Thanks for playing along 😝
Nah, that's a pretty normal republican opinion nowadays
"fuck over my kids to own the libs." It all started with that c7nt Nixon.
That mother failed her sons from the start
I think I would believe some pretty implausible things when formatted as a Wikipedia screenshot.
(this one is from wikipedia.org)
Better than what George Foreman did to his kids.
Reminds me of the Paul Garners from Beloved. There is something cruel (or worse) about denying the personality of your kids.
People seem to think I'm weird for saying that someone is a terrible person for naming their kid their same name.
Like genuinely, why?