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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Your [good] name
Message-ID: <2395@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 15:16:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2395
Posted: Thu Oct 24 15:16:53 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 04:09:34 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO
Lines: 58

What "rights" do you have with respect to your name? Are these any
different if you have legally adopted a different name than the one on
your birth certificate?

For example, I understand that the trademark laws overrule your ability
to use your name in the name of a business that you own. Even if you were
born "Joe Standard", and you have documentary proof of thiry generations
of people named "Standard" from whom you are descended, and you form an
oil company, you cannot name this company "Standard Oil Company",
because the rights to that name are already held by another entity. Is
that correct? Any other details or legal points involved here?

What about your first name (or "Christian" name)? There can be thousands
of people with that name; do you have any "rights" with respect to it?
An example -- just today, I saw a car parked at the curb with the
"vanity" license plate "NADINE" on it (Missouri plate). My
sister-in-law's name happens to be "Nadine". I jokingly suggested to my
wife (to pass on to her sister) that she should find out who owned that
car and sue them, because the car was in terrible shape (dented, rusted,
broken parts, etc.), and thus was a reflection on "her good name", thus
doing her harm. Or suppose someone printed a statement that "all people
named 'William' are deadbeats" -- since my name is William, and I am
defamed by this, is this a libelous statement for which I (and all other
"William"s) would have cause for action? Or are first names considered
so "general" or unspecific that they cannot be construed to apply to any
specific individual (or even a class of individuals)?

Every now and then you read a complaint by people named "Hooker" that
the relatively recent use of that word as a synonym for "prostitute" is
harming them. I tend to agree that they are so harmed, yet it seems that
they have no recourse to such general linguistic defamation. Are these
peoples' "rights" being violated, and, if so, just what "rights" are
being considered here?

Another aspect of names is their use in fiction (either written or
broadcast) -- is the standard statement given at the end of most credits
("all characters portrayed herein are fictional, and any resemblance to
real persons is unintentional and coincidental", or however it goes)
sufficient to absolve the writers/producers from liability in naming,
say, an horrendous villain "John Zeitgeist" and being sued by a real
person named "John Zeitgeist" because his "good name" was defamed?
What if they use a generally-known name? (Say, name the villain "Ronald
Reagan"? Or "Ronald McDonald"? [I would guess they would get in MORE
trouble doing the latter!]) What if they include the disclaimer
statement cited above, but the general audience could tell that they
were REALLY modelling this after someone else, despite their disclaimer;
say by doing a story of an American President performing various illegal
and defamatory actions, and calling him "Ronald Roogan" -- would that
slight misspelling of the name be enough for them to avoid liability?
(Suppose it wasn't a public figure [I think special rules apply in those
cases] -- suppose they do a defamatory story about a car dealer and name
him "John Petersen", and you are a car dealer named "John Peterson"?)
                ^                                               ^
Comments on this general topic are welcomed.

Will Martin

UUCP/USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin   or   ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA