Azadeh Moaveni

Having written previously in TIME about baby names banned under the Islamic Republic, I now feel obliged to share my recent discovery that a handful of names were also banned in Shah-era Iran. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi forbade certain common Farsi names such as Amir (prince) or Homayoun (imperial), whose literal meanings made them, in his eyes, the exclusive domain of the royal family. Given the popularity of such names among ordinary Iranians, this is hardly less absurd than the Islamic government banning names of pre-Islamic, Persian origin. Whether the
impulse to ban names arises from royal delusions of grandeur or an ideological campaign against Iran’s pre-Islamic past, what does seem clear is that successive Iranian governments have exercised their identity anxieties by decreeing what people can and cannot name their children.