text: Intermediate 
  In Iceland, you can be called Aagot, Arney or sfrur; Baldey, Bebba or Br. Dgg, Dimmbl, Etna and Eybjrt are fine and so are Frigg, Glds, Hrn and Ingunn. Jrlaug is OK, as are Obba, Sigurflj, rana and Vagna. But you cannot, as a girl in Iceland, be called Harriet.
  The whole situation, said Tristan Cardew, is really rather silly. With his Icelandic wife, Kristin, Cardew is appealing against a decision by the National Registry in the capital Reykjavik not to renew their ten-year-old daughter Harriets passport because it does not recognize her first name.
  Since the registry does not recognize the name of Harriets 12-year-old brother Duncan either, the two children have, until now, travelled on passports identifying them as Stlka and Drengur Cardew: Girl and Boy Cardew. But, this time, the authorities have decided to apply the letter of the law, Cardew, a British-born cook who moved to Iceland in 2000, said. And that says no official document will be issued to people who do not bear an approved Icelandic name.
  The situation meant the family, from Kpavogur, risked missing their holiday in France until they applied to the British embassy for an emergency UK passport, which should now allow them to leave.
  Names are important in Iceland, a country of only 320,000 people, whose phone book lists subscribers by their first name for the very sensible reason that most Icelandic surnames simply record the fact that you are your fathers (or mothers) son or daughter. Jn Einarssons children, for example, might be lafur Jnsson and Sigrur Jnsdttir.
  The law says that the names of children born in Iceland must  unless both parents are foreign  be submitted to the National Registry within six months of birth. If they are not on a recognized list of 1,853 female and 1,712 male names, the parents must seek the approval of a body called the Icelandic Naming Committee.
  For the 5,000 or so children born in Iceland each year, the committee reportedly receives about 100 applications and rejects about half under a 1996 law aimed mainly at preserving the Icelandic language. Among its requirements are that given names must be capable of having Icelandic grammatical endings, may not conflict with the linguistic structure of Iceland and should be written in accordance with the ordinary rules of Icelandic spelling.
  What this means in practice is that names containing letters that do not officially exist in Icelands 32-letter alphabet, such as c, are out. Similarly, names unable to accommodate the endings required by the different cases used in Icelandic are also routinely turned down. That was the problem with Harriet, said Cardew.
  The countrys naming laws have been criticized in recent years: in 2013, Blr  Light Breeze  Bjarkardttir Rnarsdottir won the right to be officially known by her given name, as opposed to Girl, when a court ruled that denying her was a violation of the Icelandic constitution. The former mayor of Reykjavik, Jn Gnarr, has also called Icelands naming law unfair, stupid and against creativity.
  The Cardews could get round Harriets problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. But its a bit late for that and way too silly, said Cardew. Are they saying they dont want us here?