No more "Christian name, sir?" in Kent, UK

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:17 AM +0000 3/27/10, Robin Hamilton wrote:
>For once, I'm with the Kent force here (or whoever wrote the guidelines).
>
>A few years ago, I became personally (internally) uncomfortable with the
>term "Christian name" -- while I have one, neither of my children do, since
>neither were Christianed.  So I guess the term is more offensive to atheists
>than to members of other religions.
>
>Actually, "offensive" is probably much too strong -- it's a case for me that
>there's just this slight element of discomfort and disturbance.
>
>Simply, I'm more comfortable with the term "given name" -- more accurate (if
>one can use the term in a lexical context, and risk the genetic fallacy),
>and carries less ideological baggage, therefore a "natural" (?) replacement.
>
>(Apparently, I have just been informed, the official term is "forename".)

If "prénom" is good enough for the French (as I
recall from filling out all those cartes
d'identité), it should be good enough for us.
The problem is that "forename" does sound a bit
odd, and would probably lead to comments like "I
only have three".  There's always "first name",
which is perhaps more accurate than either
"Christian" or "given" name for the likes of
Tiger Woods, Mark Twain, or Cary Grant, depending
on the meaning of "given".

As a non-Christian (by both lineage and
(non-)belief), I do find "Christian name" a bit
off-putting, more so than the relatively opaque
"BC" and "AD" for dates, which I know others
eschew.  (I guess opacifying "Before Christ" and
"Anno Domini" to ease the discomfort of
non-believers was an early instance of the "KFC"
model).

LH

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