Do computers dream of electric sheep?

I should perhaps have mentioned that I have some distant relatives named Brat. I don't know them at all, but remember three blond, suntanned girls from summers long ago. "Brat" (spelled "Bratt" in modern Norwegian) means "steep" and is a common prefix in Norwegian names (such as Bratteli, meaning "steep hill side").

That's so poetic!

As Bob Dylan said: "I'm a poet and I know it. Hope I don't blow it."

There is an actor in the US by the name Bratt (I forget his first name) and then there is also the actor Chris Pratt ("prat" being an informal term for a stupid or foolish person, giving us the term pratfall). One might almost think that those names were made up or "fancy" names. "Trump", I'm told, is British slang for "fart" (which beggars the question what do they call a trump card in the card game "hearts?" or was that "Spades?")
I've been on the butt end of most jokes for my last name, waaay past grade school. To this day, I still get "that CAN'T be your last name!"

There was a woman in Mississippi who named her new born daughter Le-A. True story. I'll give you all 24 hours to think how the name is pronounced. You'll never figure it out, and when you do, the answer will melt your brain.
(Those who already know the answer, don't spoil it for those who don't know).

My point is, creative ways of making names is becoming part of culture. I don't agree with it, but when you're writing a story about an alien from another planet, what are you going to say his name is? Bob? After that, creative names for fictional characters doesn't seem like such a wild stretch.
Just saying.

I've often wondered what the rules actually are for a name to go on a birth certificate. Are you limited to the 26 alphabetic characters? Does it have to be pronounceable? Is there a limit on number of characters? Presumably each country has its own rules.

I use a variety of methods for coming up with names - sometimes the right name just pops into my mind (though I often have to check that I'm not using the name of some celebrity that I've picked up from internet news or the telly), sometimes I look along my bookshelves and mix-and-match authors' names to create names of minor characters, and sometimes I use one of those websites for naming babies that tells you the meaning and origin of names.

Lileas, the witch from 'The Witching Hour', one of my stories, is actually named after the last person to be put on trial for witchcraft in Scotland!

I'm no expert. Anybody chime in who knows better. Here in America, we usually conform to the first, middle, last name. Lately, some have been adding the mother's maiden name, as a pre-surname. but that's all manner of ridiculous to me. Some try to skirt by with two first names with a hyphen between, likewise. My sister took my mom's first and middle name for her middle name, then legally changed her last name to my mom's last name (because she was too embarrassed by my family name too). So she has four names; first, first middle, hyphen, second middle, last. That she isn't married and has a name-change means she has to carry and pull out a fist-full of legal documents every time she tells someone her name.

Pilot Inspektor Reisgrath-Lee is a famous non-standard/multiple name. Moon Unit and Dweezil Zappa are likewise for non-standard, but use only three names.
I don't know if there are a standard maximum of letters per name, but most forms have a letter allotment of 20 letters for first, middle initial, 20 letter last. I counted things like that back in the day. This is most school forms, or driver's license forms. I never had to fill in a birth certificate.

In South America, I had the misfortune of buying a commissioned piece from one artist and sending him money. The telegram person looked at me like I had three heads when I said he had 6 names. first-first, second-first, first-middle, second-middle, mother's Maiden, father's Surname. And he told me, his country didn't allow him to pick it up if all of those names weren't on the form.

In America, when I was a kid, a funny child's song was "John Jacob Jinkle Heimer Schmidt" because it's funny to hear so many names.

I'm not aware of the 26 alphabetic letters and what is permissible or not, but doubt we have any non-standard characters. We just don't have the keyboards for it, and (I'd suspect) anything used otherwise is probably hacker fonts. That IS how hackers work.

I believe that in Germany you aren't allowed to name a child with a name that's never been used before, so making up 'unique' names is out.

Using the mother's maiden name as a child's middle name is quite common in Scotland - I'm named that way myself.

There doesn't seem to be any limit on the number of names you can give a child - I've heard of boys being given all the names of the players in their father's favourite football team!

Royal and aristocratic families tend to give their children multiple names, as a way of acknowledging the various ancestral lines they're related to, and of avoiding offence to any branch of the family who might otherwise feel slighted - though i was told as a child that this was to avoid being cursed; the person casting the curse had to speak the full name and the curse all in one breath, so by having a long string of names the witch, or wicked fairy, would run out of breath before completing the curse!

myrkassi

Clever! Better safe than sorry!

I'm told, back in the day, that guys would take the masculine form of their mother's FIRST name for their middle name. My uncle took his mom's first name as a middle; Francis is both masculine and feminine. My mom's first name is Ann, so I took Andrew as my middle.