It's no secret that Germans have a lot of rules. One "rule" that has become more flexible in the last few years is what you can name your child and how you spell her or his name. Now you can even bypass the commonly-accepted French spelling of the name "Jacqueline" and go right for the German phonetic spelling of "Schaklyn."

Yes, really.

Here is an article about the process of naming your child in Germany and for all you German learners out there, here are a few ways to read this article and expand upon your reading skills based on your level. N.B. I recommend you print the article out and grab a pencil no matter what your level is.

Beginners:

Read the article and look for all the different names that are presented. Circle them. Then comb through the article and look for all the verbs. How many of them do you recognize already?

Intermediate:

Lesen Sie den Artikel.

Find and circle all the verbs and a) make a list dependong on the type of verb, and/or b) mark each type of verb with a different color pencil, for example all verbs with separable prefixes are marked red, verbs with a prepositional adverb are green, etc. How many verbs are used in the present, present perfect, and simple past tenses?

Advanced:

Lesen Sie den Artikel und antworten Sie die folgende Fragen:

1. Wie hat sich die Genehmigung von Kindernamen in den letzten Jahrzehnten geändert?

2. Was ist Ihre Meinung? Darf jeder Name genehmigt werden?

3. Und wie ist es bei Ihnen? Haben Sie auch solche Namen wie "November," "Cinderella-Melodie," oder wie hier in den USA "North West"?