name

What's in a name? Would a rose, by any other name, really smell as sweet? Robert Edward Forchion Jr. may never know.

After spending more than two years trying to change his name to his Web site address -NJWeedman.com - Forchion, a Browns Mills resident, has been told by New Jersey's appellate court that he won't be allowed to adopt the moniker.

And his request isn't the only one that's been denied.

Take the prison inmate who wanted to change his name to Superfly Flamboyant, or the guy who thought he'd be happier if he were legally known as Azure Bunny Honey. Both of those names were shot down by Burlington County Superior Court Assignment Judge John A. Sweeney within the last four years.

While parents can name their children anything they want, experts say, any subsequent changes must be ruled on by the courts. Under state law, judges don't have free rein in such matters - they can only deny a name change if they believe an applicant is making the request in order to avoid criminal prosecution or creditors, or to perpetrate fraud.

But judges also can consider the principles their peers have used to decide similar cases in the past - and, as a result, additional guidelines have developed. "Case law says that if a name is bizarre, then we have a right to reject it," Sweeney says. "You have to weigh it against what their purposes are. You take a name like Superfly Flamboyant, and what possible reason would a person have for asking for their name to be changed to that? They should give us a reason."-- -- --

Then again, maybe they shouldn't. Ed Barocas, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, says a case decided by the state's Appellate Division in 2001 urges judges to keep their opinions to themselves when it comes to the question of whether a name is bizarre. Other New Jersey judges have agreed, and the ACLU supports that interpretation, Barocas says.

"The courts should not have the right to second-guess one's personal decision for a name that has meaning to them where the public is not being harmed by that name change," he says. "Judges have no monopoly on wisdom, no clairvoyance into the public mind, no right to impose personal views or values on the citizenry of our state."Forchion couldn't agree more. "For judges to have discretion on that is kind of too broad or too vague, because what is bizarre to one person is unique and idealistic to another person," the 39-year-old says.

Those who believe it's strange to use a Web address as a name, he adds, are simply not used to the possibilities brought about by new technology, and they shouldn't restrict the rights of others because of those views.

"This is a new, 21st century thing," Forchion says. "It's unique to the 21st century, and common laws (allowing name changes to be denied) are centuries old. Basically, there was no thought or idea of a Web site" when the laws were created. Because of the opposition he's encountered, Forchion says, his quest to change his name has become nothing short of "a freedom issue."

"How could you be free when the government tells you what you can and cannot
name yourself?" he asks. "This is my way of resisting the government - of me expressing myself - and that's what America is supposed to be about."-- -- -- Forchion's case, however, is a bit more complicated than that. Although the courts initially tried to deem Forchion's proposed name bizarre, he says, they ultimately turned down his request because his Web site espouses the view that marijuana should be legalized and because he was arrested in 1997, and later imprisoned, on charges of possession and intent to distribute 40 pounds of the drug.

In deciding the name-change case on March 26, Camden County Superior Court Judge John Fratto ruled that Forchion couldn't be called NJWeedman.com because he "could and would use the name . . . to enhance his participation in the sale or distribution of marijuana."

The appeals court upheld that finding May 4, asserting that Forchion encourages people to break marijuana laws as part of the fight to change them. But Forchion rejects that assessment and plans to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. "I had not used the name to sell marijuana, and I have not sold (marijuana) in years," he says. "My Web site is to express my displeasure at government action. I oppose the war on drugs, and anybody who knows me knows that. It was a freedom of _expression issue, a First Amendment issue."

It's a point of view that World B. Free, a former basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers, believes in. Originally known as Lloyd Bartholomew Free, the player - now an "ambassador" who makes public appearances on behalf of the team - legally changed his name in 1981 so he could wear the nickname he'd had since junior high school on the back of his jersey during games.

The retired athlete, who spends much of his time speaking to children, says he also made the change to promote an important ideal. "I was hoping one day that the world could be free," he says. Free isn't crazy about people changing their names to reflect "negative" sentiments, and he has plenty of bad associations when it comes to drugs, which he says "nearly killed me." But he says he can't fault Forchion for trying to take the name NJWeedman.com. "I would be hypocritical if I went back and said, `It's a negative thing to make that type of change,' "he says. "It is a free country."

He does, however, believe that judges have to draw the line somewhere when they're deciding what people should be allowed to call themselves. "If you have
something very vulgar as a name, it should be turned down," Free says.

And it very well might be, since judges are allowed to rely on legal precedent to reject names that are "offensive to common decency or good taste." Barocas is opposed to that policy, insisting that obscene or unpleasant names should be just as permissible as any others. Which means that, in the attorney's ideal world, National Football League player Rod Smart of the Carolina Panthers would easily be able to change his name to the one fans know - He Hate Me.

Like Free did, Smart wants to wear the nickname that made him famous on the
back of his jersey, and it's been reported that he may try to legally adopt the name so his team will allow him to do it.

But to achieve that goal, Smart will have to be more successful in court than some of the other Americans who have pursued unusual name changes over the years.-- -- --

Thomas Boyd Ritchie III, for instance, was rejected by San Francisco's Superior Court in 1984 when he asked to change his name simply to "III." And in 1979, Michael Herbert Dengler was denied by the Minnesota Supreme Court
when he tried to change his name to the number 1069. The number, Dengler argued, "symbolized his inter-relationship with society, and conceptually reflected his personal and philosophical identity," according to court papers.

But in both cases, the courts held that a number did not constitute a name. Still, new ground is being gained all the time when it comes to the kinds of name changes people are securing through the courts.

In 2001, New Jerseyan Jill Iris Bacharach won an appeal that allowed her to change her last name to that of her same-sex partner. While gay marriages are not legal in New Jersey, the appeals court ruled, a shared last name should be allowed because state law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and allows same-sex partners to adopt children. Five years earlier, Somerset County artist Rosa Linda Ferner conquered what might have been the most imposing opponent of all - New Jersey's bureaucracy - when she got permission to change her name to a single word: Koriander.

"Based on the certifications presented by the State of New Jersey, a single name may cause some inconvenience to government agencies, in particular to their computer record-keeping and indexing systems," that written decision states. "Computers and record keepers, however, need not control individual liberties."