What's In a Name?: Baby "Messiah" Sparks Controversy in Tennessee

In this recent Tennessee case, child support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew of the 4^th Judicial District ruled that a baby boy’s name could not be Messiah, and ordered the baby’s name to be changed to Martin.

What started as a petition to change the child’s last name (a common appeal in family court) turned into much more significant case, raising important questions about religious freedom. The judge is quoted explaining her decision based on the argument that “it could put him at odds with a lot of people and at this point he has had no choice in what his name is…the word Messiah is a title and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person and that person is Jesus Christ.” This is a fairly weak reason that stands little chance of being upheld if the child’s family chooses to appeal the decision, and the ACLU has already offered to appeal the ruling on behalf of the baby’s mother. The New York Times author of the article, Mark Oppenheimer argued that the magistrate might have had more standing had she appealed to the potential infringement on others’ religious liberty ie: those who did not want to call this child the Messiah, but instead Ballew invoked her own religious beliefs in the ruling. According to the article, the baby’s mother, Jalessa Martin, claims she never intended to name her son Messiah because it means God, and that she didn’t think a judge could make her change her child’s name because of the judge’s religious beliefs. Ms. Martin was in all likelihood correct—the ACLU-Tennessee executive director sees this case as an “unnecessary breach of a parents’ right to name their child what they please…while a judge has a right to her religious beliefs, she cannot impose her faith on those who appear in the courtroom.”

The case of baby Messiah/Martin is likely to be overturned as a violation of the First Amendment. It’s true that states can put various restrictions on naming rights, including length and punctuation, but restrictions based on an appeal to religion are clearly problematic. Tennessee law states that the court must find that the requested name change does not harm anyone else, so the question becomes, in what way is the name Messiah harming anyone? The legality of names has recently developed into a controversial topic across the country, and in order to understand the Tennessee case it might be useful to examine some other naming cases.
              

Last year, a New York judge ruled against a family petitioning to change their surname to ChristIsKing. The judge denied the family’s request on the ground that “allowing certain names could infringe on the religious liberties of others…[such as] a court employee forced to call out a name with a religious message.” In New Jersey, a judge took custody of four children whose parents named them after prominent Nazi figures, with names like Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, and Honszlynn Hinler Campbell. The Campbell’s first made headlines when a bakery refused to write “Happy Birthday Adolf Hilter” on a cake. These cases about names raise important questions about the rights of parents to name their child, the impact of names on other’s religious freedom, and ultimately, staking an interest in the well-being of minors whose contentious names could possibly have lasting influence as they grow up and enter school, the workforce, etc.

Yet, despite the cases in which judges have been opposed to religiously charged names, according to the article, the name Messiah was given to 762 baby boys in 2012—and the Tennessee decision would plausibly affect all of those children as well. And one might wonder about the name Jesus, a name popular among Americans of Hispanic decent. The New York Times article is also quick to point out that “Hebrew-derived names are particularly popular among Latinos who have become Pentecostal Protestants,” and names like Adonai and Elohim have been increasingly given to babies in recent years.

            The Tennessee magistrate overstepped her bounds both legally and religiously. Jaleesa Martin brought the case to the court in order to change the child’s last name, and she left with an order to change the child’s first name. It is unlikely that Ballew’s decision will be upheld on these grounds alone—the court cannot raise issues on its own, if it has not been brought before them.

            There are also serious religious liberty issues at stake. There are valid competing claims of religious freedom—for Ballew, her concern (akin to the ruling against the “ChristIsKing” family) is for the public, and any person forced to call this person Messiah. And for the baby’s family, the issue is seen as their right to name the boy what they please, arguing it had no underlying religious connotation, and they should deserve the same freedom as the parents of 3,758 baby Jesus’s born in 2012.

            The judge’s opinion that Messiah, as a title, has only been earned by one person (Christ) is extremely troubling. That is clearly a statement rooted in Ballew’s religious beliefs, and does not reflect the intent of the family. The Tennessee case of baby Messiah/Martin is dealing with a more mainstream name, rather than a name with more overtly proselytizing intent, like ChristIsKing. Nevertheless, the lines aren’t clear where one person’s freedom to name their child Messiah stops being harmless and starts infringing upon someone else’s Christian beliefs. If naming the child Messiah, shows a “lack of respect for Christian people” as Norman Smith, chairman of the legislative body for Cocke County, Tennessee, told ABCNews, then what is to say that names like Jesus, or even Mary, are not offensive, too? Further, if the judge had said it would be unfair to make a teacher call a child Messiah (which is likely to happen when he enters school) would that be okay constitutionally? If the decision is upheld it will set a precedent that says the rights of a hypothetical person (any Christian who also believes Messiah is a title earned only by Christ) are more important than a parent’s right to name her child. But, what makes it worse, is that Ballew explicitly placed her own religious convictions at the forefront of the decision, a move that I think diminishes any legitimate argument she may have had.