A baby in Indonesia has been awarded the title of “world’s strangest name” after it was revealed that his parents legally registered him as “Google”; no surname or middle name, just Google, just like the search engine.
The eight-month-old boy’s father, 31-year-old Andi Cahya Saputra, told Indonesian media that he first contemplated the idea of giving his child a tech-related name when his wife was seven months pregnant. Before that, he had considered more common names, like Albar Dirgantara Putra, or names mentioned in the Quran, but in the end he decided that none of them were quite right.
So he ended up looking at names of technology companies and products like “Windows, iPhone, Microsoft and iOS”, and ultimately settled on Google. Although the mother didn’t really like the idea at first, she ultimately agreed and now they have a boy named after the world’s most popular internet search engine.
Local media in south-western Indonesia’s West Java Province recently reported that the boy’s mother, 27-year-old Ella Karin was too embarrassed to reveal his name to the world for the first three months, referring to him solely as ‘baby boy’. She has grown quite fond of Google, though, and now says that she hopes her son will become “a leader” of “many people”.
Asked why they didn’t at least include a surname or a second name on Google’s birth certificate, Andi Cahya Saputra said that he didn’t want to “dilute” the essence of the boy’s special name.
“I told my father, ‘Pak, Google has a great meaning, because I hope Google can help many people, become a useful person to others,’” Google’s father added. “Google is number one in the world, the site most visited by people.”
Ella admitted that people like to joke about their choice of name for their son, saying that if they ever have another child they’ll name it “WhatsApp”, but she says it doesn’t bother her that much, because they just don’t understand the “meaning” of Google’s name.
