Parents face legal challenge after naming baby 'Jihad'

A family in Toulouse who called their baby son Jihad are in legal limbo after the city’s authorities took the case to prosecutors to see if the name was lawful.

Judges will now have to rule whether or not to order the parents to change the name of the child who was born in the southwestern city in August.

Until 1993, French parents had to choose a first name for their offspring from an officially approved list, but now they are allowed to pick any name as long as it does not go against the child's interest.

The Arabic word “jihad" means self-denial or a personal and non-violent battle against sin, but the term has in recent years become most associated with violent Islamist extremists.

Given that France has been targeted over the past few years in a series of deadly terror attacks by so-called jihadists, judges are likely to balk at letting a child be given the name.

But if they do let the Toulouse boy keep the name, it would not be first time a baby has been called 'Jihad' in France.

In 2013 a mother sent her three-year-old son who is called Jihad to school in the city of Nimes wearing a sweater with the words "I am a bomb" on the front, and his name and “Born on September 11”' on the back.

The mother was later given a suspended jail sentence for using her son to “glorify terrorism.”

In September this year, a court in Brittany ordered a couple to change their child’s name - Fañch, a name from the Breton language  - because it contained a tilde, or squiggle over the letter “n.”

The judges argued that the tilde does not exist in French and thus the name was not acceptable.

In 2015, when a couple in the northern town of Valenciennes tried to call their child Nutella, they were told by a court to change it as using “the name of a chocolate spread” was against the girl’s interests as it might “lead to mockery and unpleasant remarks.”

A few months earlier that year, the same court made similar arguments before overturning the decision of another couple to name their child Fraise (Strawberry).