They finally settled on the name Eliot.

Breathing a sigh of relief, they didn't realize the country's Register of Population Records needs to first approve any baby names deemed unusual, foreign or just plain strange. Eliot was one of those names.

Out of the 100,000 names that parents nationwide annually select, about 1 percent are considered peculiar enough to need assessing by an expert linguist. Should the name not prove to exist in another language, or should it carry a negative connotation, the official rejects it, leaving parents hunting for a more suitable name.

Experts say more Czechs than ever before are looking to name their children something offbeat.

Rádl, a self-described freethinker, says that he hadn't realized the state had to approve names of newborns.

"It is completely absurd," he says.

State control praised, disdained

Miloslava Knappová is the woman charged with judging and approving all undocumented first names.

Originally, documented names were only those listed in the Czech calendar, which featured some 300 Roman Catholic names. As Knappová periodically gives her blessing to other, less common names, the register simply adds them to the list. Today, the list features a few thousand authorized names and spelling variations.

Erazim Kohák, a Philosophical Faculty professor at Charles University, thinks the state is acting in everyone's best interest by regulating names. "Parents have a choice. They can select from thousands of approved names."

According to Kohák, the state only helps to protect the child's rights from irresponsible adults. Kohák cited cases in Africa as an example: "There are cases of white doctors naming black children 'Urine' because they found it funny."

Others disagree. "The state should stay out of this," says Václav Rameš, a Třeboň, south Bohemia, archive director who specializes in name origin. "Although I know some parents come up with freakish names."

According to Rameš, people's tastes in names change based on current cultural influences. The popularity of the name Aneta grew rapidly after Aneta Langerová became the first Czech Superstar. Under communism, people voluntarily named their children "Pětiletka" (Five-Year Plan).

"It's worldwide madness," concludes Rameš. In Brazil, a father recently named his son after a football team.

Monopoly on names

Because Knappová is the only recognized Czech name expert, she personifies the demons of the regulation. While some praise her expertise, others are outraged that one person has a monopoly on the appropriateness of all names.

"Does one 80-year-old woman honestly have the right to decide my child's name?" asks Jan Lepař, the father of Finn, who was so angry that the state questioned the legitimacy of his son's Scandinavian name that he started a heated discussion about personal liberties on the Czech server blisty.com. Others, such as the parents of Midnight Storm — the most controversial name case to date — followed quickly.

Knappová says that parents often compete to create unusual names and do not always take the child's interests into consideration. Although most names get approved rather smoothly, there are always some she rejects.

"A family will say, 'Our neighbors have a son named Diego. We want Chicago.' "

She rejected Chicago because it derives from an American Indian word for "swamp."

"Escada" was another Knappová rejected: "It's a brand, not a name."

Unique name for a fee

Adding to the controversy, Knappová regularly publishes an approved list of names as a book with the title: How will your child be named? All Czech registers use it religiously, and parents can buy it for 165 Kč ($7) as a benchmark for their naming creativity.

Some parents seem quite pleased with the way things work. According to Natálie Honková, the system works well if you avoid surprises by doing research ahead of time. Although the name she wanted — Zara — wasn't in the book, she found she had to pay a fee of 590 Kč to get an expert statement. The expert, Knappová, then found the name in a foreign encyclopedia and sent them an official letter acknowledging Zara as a legitimate female name.

But Honková found the fees unfair. As the first requestors of Zara, they had to cover the approval fee for everyone else who picks the name. "Now Zara is an approved name and nobody else has to pay," she says.

Name not known

Other parents, such as the Rádls, boycott Knappová's services or paying for something they believe is everyone's basic freedom. When their son Eliot was born, the register refused to authorize the name without Knappová's approval. Instead, they got a birth certificate stating their child's first name was "Not Known."

The Rádls hired a lawyer who threatened to sue the state because Eliot was a legitimate name. A few weeks later, their local register called to tell them it had approved the name after all, no further statement from Knappová needed.

Rádl finds it odd that, as meticulous as it is about rubber stamps and papertrails, the register never got back to their attorney in writing. "They just told us to tell our lawyer it is approved," he says.