Cash to name babies for Mussolini

[Fog-struck]

"A far-right Italian party is offering 1,500 euros ($1,900) to parents who name their children after the fascist dictator Mussolini or his wife.

The small Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore (MS-FT) party denies its gesture is racist and says the names Benito and Rachele are merely 'nice'."

The rest of the article can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7747169.stm.


Your thoughts?

[Mazy]

I don't know...I think that's a bit odd.

[Rusalka]

I agree the names aren't bad, but in the context they're really digging themselves in a hole with the negative connotations. Not racist per se, but an endorsement of facism for sure.
Wouldn't do it myself.

[ckevans]

Together the names Benito and Rachele mean only one thing to Italians - they signify their former dictator and his wife.

I'd like to get data from Italy on whether it is just when one puts the two together that one thinks of the Mussolinis, or if the names automatically conjure up the Mussolini image by themselves. Is Benito as unpopular a name in Italy as Adolf is now in Germany?

[Zabbie]

Good grief! Why not give a cash incentive to anyone having a baby if they want to increase the birth rate? If it weren't a far-right party it could be that they were just trying to 'rehabilitate' names that are associated with the couple, because if they started being used again then the association would be diminished. But the fact that they're far-right makes it sound more sinister.

[sunkissed86]

Yikes. It seems really awful to think that people could be not only giving a name that they may not even like to their child, let alone all the people who may have a child just for the money and not because they actually want to have a child... That disturbs me.

I don't know if I believe that it's just to increase the low birth rate. I agree with Elizabeth, it would make more sense if they were just offering the cash to anyone who has a baby... Although that would be much more expensive, it seems they could find a different way than telling people what to name their children.

If it was up to me, I'd suggest they offer it to anyone who already has one or two children to have a second or third, that way the people are already parents, and can name their children whatever they want! And that's less expensive for the party than to pay everyone who has a baby.