Naming a child to avoid DHS/TSA harassment
 

My wife and I are expecting a baby early next year. We want to avoid giving him/her a name that would come up as a match with one of the names on the do-not-fly list. From what I’ve read in other posts, even a newborn infant is presumed to be a terrorist threat if there is a name match.

Is there a way to check with the TSA or DHS to see if any of the names we are considering (along with our last name) will cause problems?

It's a shame that our country has come to this, but even if we really fell in love with a particular baby name, we’d decide on something else if we knew it would cause airport harassment for us and for our child.

Well, you could give the baby a name that mixes numbers and letters (if the state agency will accept it*). :D

The more unique the first, middle and last names, the better off he/she will be in a country with blacklisting by name.

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* In some countries, names are vetted by government authorities before it is allowed to be considered legal. (And, in certain countries, some names -- particularly last ones and/or family names -- cannot be accepted as a legal change or legal unless it is acquired by marriage and/or parentage. Try changing or bestow a last name to a French name of Bernadotte in Sweden and it'll stir a frenzy and get rejected.)

When's your baby due? You probably don't have time to read through the list there are so many names on it.

I work for a non-profit and one agency asked us to affirm that we didn't do business with "known terrorists" - we were given a link to a website that had so many names and was in print so small that there was no way we would/could affirm that we had "checked" the list.

Granted that it was probably not the no-fly list, but you'll never find that information because, of course, it's secret.

Not to pry, but could I ask if you are expecting a boy or girl? I have a rather unusual spelling of my first name (I am a girl) and I believe that usually that works well. Then again, most terrorists that are publicized about are male, so staying away from the stereotypical "targetted" names would be preferable. Also, I travel with everything having my middle name on it...one more name means that much more unlikely to have the same name on a list. Although, to date, I have not heard of a terrorist with the name Ashley, Jessica, Jennifer or Tiffany...maybe that's saying something. ;)

We have decided to let it be a surprise.

Our last name is not very common, but the list is so large, I wouldn't be surprised if someone on the list had the same last name. I agree that a less common first name is probably the way to go.

I heard Osama is a nice name. ;)

This is an interesting question though. My wife started wondering when I mentioned this thread as we hope to have a kid in the next year too.

I'd still go with a good solid not totally common middle name and use it always when booking tickts etc. That way if you have a pretty normal first/last name you still have that third name to go with.

BTW, Congrats!

The various blacklists don't always get gender right .... and it has a problem telling a Mr. from a Mrs./Ms./Miss on more than one occassion.

Since the lists are composed also, at least in part, of names of convicted felons, the list of women on the various blacklists is growing too. Women will not be spared. ;)

A child named Osama O'Reilly Silberman will probably be in the clear for some time. Osama O'Reilly Cohen may not.

One warning: I have seen some suggestions that the no-fly matching process uses Soundex (or something like it) which allows for certain kinds of partial matches. (The intention behind Soundex was that two words whose pronunciation is similar would receive the same "Soundex code" and thus would count as matching.) If those suggestions are accurate, I'm not sure if unusual spellings of your first name will be enough. Of course, I'm just speculating wildly, because I don't think anyone really knows exactly how the no-fly list works.

I'm pretty sure the following names won't be on that list unless a regime change occurs in the US:
George W. Bush
Michael Chertoff
Dick Cheney
Tom DeLay
Bill Frist
Trent Lott
Bill O'Reilly
Tom Ridge
Mark Hatfield
Osama Bin Laden (we all know what he looks like, right?)
Saddam Hussein (he's in jail, so he's not a risk)

Similarly, I expect these names to be on the list due to the current regime:
Hillary Clinton
Bill Clinton
John Kerry
Al Gore
Edward Kennedy (he really is on the list)
Michael Moore
Osama Bin Laden (in case the TSA has a working brain cell)
Saddam Hussein (in case the TSA has no working brain cell)

How sad to even be thinking about this.

When naming our children years and years ago we gave final consideration to how it would look on corporate letterhead. How sick is that? (But it did spare them a lot of the grief that Moonbaby or 3CPi02 would have had to endure. And if there were letterhead these days, their names would be on it. :) )

Perhaps this explains why US friends recently named their son Maz. They said it's a common name in NZ where they recently vacationed.

Beats the hell out of a 2-year-old I know who's named Sensimilla. Good grief parents, get a grip. (Or a clip. Either kind. But that is really not funny, this is a child's life.) I don't think the parents have enough vision to expect her to travel further than the corner.

Just remember that, for security reasons, your child's name must be at least 6 characters long and include letters and numbers.

Guess "pWn3d" isn't acceptable. ;)

Neither is:
l337
d00d
n00b
or rx0rz

:D

Soundex is not the only the type of system being used for such purposes. That said, Osama O'Reilly Cohen may get flagged ..... for just such a reason. ;)