ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – What’s in a name? Apparently a lot, under Iranian laws that prohibit certain names, including those with specific reference to Kurdistan.
According to Iranian Kurds in the country’s predominantly Kurdish western regions such as the provinces of Kermanshah and Ilam, local authorities do not allow certain Kurdish names, among them Peshawa, Kurdistan, Komar, Qazi, Awara and Zrebar.
The name Qandil is apparently also not allowed: It refers to the Qandil mountain in the adjacent Kurdish regions of Iraq, where the outlawed PJAK guerrillas are based.
Iran’s Registry Act notes that, “the selection of name is by the announcer.” It mandates that, “A conventional name, simple or compound, shall be chosen.” But it also grants the Supreme Council of Registry the right to reject names it deems non-permissible.
Some Kurdish families say they give their newborns two names, one for official registration and another for family and friends.
For decades Iran’s poor and restive Kurdish regions have complained of neglect and discrimination. The country’s estimated 12 million Kurds comprise about 20 percent of the population. They have their own separate language and culture, and are mostly Sunnis, in a predominantly Shiite Muslim country.
Last month Qadir Qadiri, a preacher in the Kurdish city of Pawa, complained at a seminar that “most of the names that Kurds suggest are inappropriate. The girls who have Kurdish names do not know anything about housework. They are only good for texting and ambling about.”
He was not left unanswered. Abdulqadir Beizaee, another cleric, announced that, “There is no harm in choosing Kurdish names for Kurdish kids. Islam does not prevent such a thing.”
Mohsen Aghayee, director of registrations in Sanandaj (Sina in Kurdish) told Rudaw, “There is no restriction on a Kurdish name as long as it is a meaningful name, and not foreign.”
He said suitable names could be found in the Hambana Borina Kurdish dictionary.
Anwar Saeed, a lawyer in Iranian Kurdistan, also said there was no Iranian law banning Kurdish names, but acknowledged that, local “registration officers are sometimes the ones who do not approve them.”
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