A group of Russian lawmakers have drafted a bill that would ban parents from giving their newborn children “unusual” names, state media reported Monday, citing one of the proposed legislation’s authors.
“We need to protect children from becoming dumplings, stools and nightstands,” said Tatiana Butskaya, a member of the ruling United Russia party and a member of the lower-house State Duma’s Committee on Family Protection, Issues of Fatherhood, Motherhood and Childhood.
Butskaya did not say when the bill, which would introduce a list of approved names for newborns, would be submitted to the parliament for its first reading.
“The bill is ready, everything is ready,” she said in a live stream on her Telegram channel, according to the state-run news agency TASS. “As soon as we find where we can choose the [approved] names from, we’re ready to submit.”
It remains unclear whether the draft legislation has received backing from the government. Butskaya said the original idea of the bill was to ban parents from giving newborns names traditionally associated with the opposite gender.
Current Russian law only prohibits the use of numbers, symbols, titles, ranks and profanity in baby names.
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