this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
410 points (95.8% liked)

Not The Onion

12180 readers
864 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Comments must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

But does that mean I can name my kid Walt Disney Company?

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago

... try it out and let us know

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 months ago

Sure… Walter is a regular first name, and there’s lots of people with the last name Disney. It’s from “de Ysini”, and lots of people lived and live in the Ysini region. Company is from the French compagnie, from Latin companio, where we also get companion.

So “Walter of Ysini, Friend” AKA “Walt Disney Company” is a perfectly legitimate name.

As is Michael Mouse.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

Excluding laws in certain places meant to protect children from a life of ridicule, you can name your child whatever you want.

The issue of trademark, which is what this article highlights, only concerns applications where there is a business conflict. For example, it is normal for an actor/musician/artist to trademark their name as their "brand," which means I can't just form a thrash metal band called "Taylor Swift" to profit off of some confused music listeners. And even if my legal name was Taylor Swift, I could still be required to change my "stage name" to something else when promoting myself as an artist to avoid any confusion/conflict with Tay-Tay.

Last I checked, Warner Bros is not in the passport industry, so this is a dumb argument that should never have occurred. If I had to guess, it was probably just some random disgruntled government employee who felt the need to play armchair activist and "punish" a parent because they didn't like the name they chose for their child.

[–] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 3 months ago

Absolutely... Will Disney likely sue you into oblivion? Most likely.