Saudi Arabia bans 50 blasphemous, royal and foreign baby names

Kingdom makes naming of babies much easier after eliminating options such as Alice, Linda and Binyamin

A little Muslim pilgrim boy holds his mother's hand in Mina, five kilometres (three miles) east of the Saudi Arabian holy city of Mecca, on November 14, 2010, as some 2.5 million Muslim pilgr
(Image credit: 2010 AFP)

ALICE and Amir are on a list of 50 names that Saudi Arabia has released in an effort to clean up what it sees as the blasphemous, foreign-influenced naming of children. Many of the names that will now be forbidden in the strict Muslim kingdom are popular across the Middle East.

The names on the list published by the interior ministry fall into three categories: foreign names, blasphemous names and names relating to royalty.

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