From The "you Can't Make This Sh%t Up" Department

[StoneSoup]

Cell phone thief becomes famous - due to his name : http://en.khaosod.co...wsid=1407476351

 

Meet: Mr. "Haeng Jobs Happy Life Make Life Better"

 

Image of Thai ID card:

 

[King Kung]

Thai ID card: Mr. Haeng Jobs Happy Life Make Life Better

 

But if a farang and a Thai have a child in the Kingdom they wish to name Cynthia or Annabelle, they are told, "NO, it is not a Thai name!"

 

Guess I should have named my daughter "Wax On Wax Off Karma Recycled." Perhaps that would have been appropriate. This place is an enigma.

[radioman]

Boh my kids have very western names, no Thai names and no nicknames. It's in both Thai and English on their ID cards. They were both born at Bumrungrad and nobody said anything when they were named indeed they were very particular to make sure the spelling was as requested.

[King Kung]

When my daughter was born, my wife and I decided to name her Michelle*. We went to the amphur office with the certificate from the hospital and politely told the fat gay imbecile behind the counter our little five-day-old princess would be named Michelle*. He went on a rampage.

 

Wagging his finger in my wife's face and yammering on for 20 minutes about Thai law. We sat and smiled and insisted her name is Michelle*. He angrily tore through a stack of books looking for the law, demanding that name simply wouldn't do. "Take her somewhere else if you don't want to giver her a Thai name," he insisted. "This is Thailand!" My wife and I sat there quietly as the fat queer stormed off to lunch. It was all rather comical. When he was gone, the other lady behind the counter suggested we go to the amphur in the next town over (the hospital services more than one amphur) and see if we can do better there. So we did -- the only caveat is that they wanted us to giver her a Thai middle name. We hadn't planned on a middle name, but settled for Melissa. (Apparently that's Thai enough -- Malisa.) Thai government at all levels is famous for it's haphazard and slipshod policies. There are several farang-Thai couples with children around us and almost all have kids with Thai names.

 

* not her name, but something similarly benign and unoffensive.

 

I recall another country (Sweden or Norway, I think) that requires children names conform to a certain code. Another ridiculous anachronism.

[Flashermac]

I've taught Thai students with western or even Japanese names. Must be up to each amphur office to make up their own rules.

[radioman]

We never went to any office. Everything was done at the hospital and they delivered the birth certificates to the room. Had these translated autheticated and then registered in UK as well so both kids have two birth certificates, one Thai, one UK, same name on both. Both were born in Bangkok so both registered as Bangkokian from birth. That seemed as important as anything I recall.

[King Kung]

The UK government issues a birth certificate for children born in Thailand?

That's odd.

Are you sure its not a consular report of birth abroad?

 

*edit* Or a

 

"This is called a Consular birth registration. The document you obtain is not a UK birth certificate and should not be used as such. It does not replace the locally issued birth certificate which you would obtain when in the UK."

 

http://www.british-consulate.org/british-born-abroad.html

[radioman]

Hmm, I'd have to go look to be honest on that one. Looks awfully like a birth certificate I recall. They did want to see this when we did their UK passports and I see on the website that that now seems unnecessary. Mind this was 12 and 13 years ago so highy possible things have changed. Don't think there was a border agency back then either, lotsa changes recently.