🇨🇭 Baby Naming Rules in Switzerland
Switzerland regulates first names in a single sentence of an ordinance. There is no list of banned names, no limit on how many you may give, and refusals are rare enough that a whole canton may see only isolated cases in a year.
- Legal basis
- Art. 301(4) Civil Code; Art. 37c(3) Civil Status Ordinance (ZStV)
- Authority
- The cantonal civil status office (Zivilstandsamt)
- Deadline
- The birth is reported within three days
- How many names
- No statutory limit
- Sex of the name
- Not required
- Approved list
- None, despite frequent claims to the contrary
One sentence does the work
Article 301(4) of the Swiss Civil Code says that the parents give the child its first name. The limit on that freedom sits in the Civil Status Ordinance, where Article 37c(3) instructs the civil status officer to reject first names that obviously violate the interests of the child.
The word doing the work there is obviously. The office is not asked whether it likes the name, whether the name is fashionable, or whether it is spelled the way the officer would spell it. It is asked whether the name would plainly disadvantage the child. That is a high bar, and it is meant to be.
How it works in practice
Every birth is reported to the civil status office within three days so it can be entered in the register. The name is checked case by case, taking into account the cultural and social situation of the family and the child. A name that is unremarkable in one language community may look odd in another, and Switzerland has four of them, so the assessment cannot be mechanical.
Formal rejections are unusual. The canton of Bern reports at most isolated cases in a year. If your name is a real name somewhere in the world, the likely outcome is that it is registered.
There is no Swiss list of forbidden names
Articles listing names that Switzerland has banned circulate regularly, and they are not describing Swiss law. No such list exists. What exists is the single test in Article 37c(3) of the ordinance, applied by the cantonal offices to the case in front of them.
Individual refusals do get reported and sometimes get appealed, which is how a handful of names end up being cited as if they were on a register. A decision about one child in one canton is not a prohibition list.
Sources
Every statement on this page is taken from an official or judicial source. The links below go to the originals so you can check them yourself.
Last reviewed: August 2026. This page explains the rules in general terms and is not legal advice. Where a decision matters to you, ask the authority that will register the name.