united-states copyright intellectual-property trademark name
Is your child&#39;s name subject to copyright/trademark law?
<p>If I name my son &quot;Nintendo&quot;, and my son goes on to make headlines doing bad things, I can imagine the company named &quot;Nintendo&quot; wouldn't be too happy. Similarly if I named my kid &quot;Google&quot; or &quot;Microsoft&quot; or &quot;Sony&quot;, etc..</p>
<p>As such, would the name you give your child be subject to copyright/trademark law?</p>
<p>As a follow-up, what about if I wanted to legally change my name to &quot;Nintendo&quot;? Lastly, what about the names of fictional characters? E.g. writing a story and having the main villain named &quot;Nintendo&quot;?</p>

<h2>NO</h2>
<p>The Names of actual people can neither be trademarked nor <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#:%7E:text=No.,Titles%2C%20or%20Short%20Phrases%22." rel="nofollow noreferrer">can a name have a valid copyrighted</a>. There is no valid market class for names of people, making it impossible to register a trademark in that category. As a result, neither copyright nor trademark will prevent someone from attempting to name a kid &quot;Nintendo&quot; or &quot;Sony Music&quot;.</p>
<p>While you could <em>try</em> to name your kid Nintendo, unless you are in the US, most countries like <a href="/questions/tagged/germany" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;germany&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;germany&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="germany-container">germany</a> or <a href="/questions/tagged/japan" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;japan&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;japan&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="japan-container">japan</a> do safeguard what you can name a child. Those countries <strong>will</strong> deny your name as endangering the (mental) health of the child or in other way making the child a target for mockery. Compare to names in <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/a/88505/10334">all lowercase</a>, <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/a/85328/10334">line breaks</a>, and <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/a/88512/10334">infinitely long</a> names.</p>
