This is so Saudi.

The interior ministry of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has a long border with the UAE, has issued a ban on 50 names for newborns in the country.

As the link suggests, the bans seem to fall into three broad categories.

But Alice? Linda? Elaine? Lauren?

All banned in Saudi Arabia.

So the three categories that can be seen by local Muslims:

1. Those perceived to be offensive to Muslims. (Or the guys who run Saudi Arabia, anyway.)

2. Those with “royal” connotations.

3. Those of non-Arabic or non-Islamic origin.

In the first category are several names common among Shiites, the Islamic sect viewed as heretical by the staunchly Sunni Saudis. Those include Abdul Hussein or Abdul Nabi.

Those with royal connotations include Malek (king), Malika (queen), Amir (prince) and Sumuw (highness).

And the non-Arabic would include Rama, which is a fairly common name in India, a country where polytheism is fairly common, and that horrifies Saudi. Alice, Linda, Elaine and Lauren fit in there, too, but the notion that Saudis might actually be giving those names to babies is the news here, and almost comical. My recollection is that “Linda” comes from the Spanish for “pretty” and Elaine is a variety of “Helen”, which is Greek. Innocuous, but not Arabic.

A couple seem to be political. Benjamin is banned, even though some Muslims carry varieties of the name; the thinking is that they remind the Saudis of Israel’s prime minister. As well as Abdul Nasser, which were two of the given names of a former dictator of Egypt, of whom the Saudis disapproved.

Given some of the bizarre names being stuck on American kids, over the past 20 years, we might wish the U.S. government would issue its own banned list … but a good rule of thumb is, if Saudi does “X”, an open society ought to do “Y”.