Parents in Sweden face fines for 'nameless' children

Swedish authorities are cracking down on parents who take too long to name their newborn children.

For the past several months, officials from the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket ) have been sending letters to parents of children in the agency’s registry who lack a first name.

In the letters, the agency informs the indecisive parents that they face fines as high as 10,000 kronor ($1,200) if they don’t notify the agency of their child’s name promptly.

“It’s every child’s right to have a name,” said the Tax Agency’s Thomas Norgren.

According to Swedish law, parents are to have their child’s first name registered with the agency by the time the child is three months old. But some parents wait until after their children are registered for daycare, which usually takes place around a child’s first birthday.

Norgren explains that, while the law isn’t new, he and his colleagues only recently turned their attention to the issue upon realizing just how many Swedish children in their registry lacked a first name. “We decided that this is our job, after all,” he said.