At 3:34 a.m. between Sunday and Monday this week, a baby boy was born at the University Hospital in Leipzig. As is routine, the hospital announced the birth on its social media accounts, adding three red hearts and cheerful icons of a jellyfish, seashell, and turtle.
What no one in the hospital or on its Instagram team seemed to notice was the name chosen by the parents: Yahya Sinwar, after the Hamas leader, arch-terrorist, and one of the masterminds behind the October 7 massacre.
Following criticism, the hospital deleted the post and issued an apology. But the controversy has now raised a thorny legal question for Leipzig’s authorities: Can parents legally name their child after a murderous terrorist?
In Germany, parents can generally choose any name for their child, with a few restrictions: the name must not harm the child socially, cannot be a surname (like Müller) used as a first name, and must clearly indicate the child’s gender. Names such as “Satan” or “McDonald” have been rejected in the past. Under these rules, there is technically no explicit ban on naming a baby Yahya Sinwar.
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However, Leipzig’s civil registry office recently stated that “names of extremists and names with violent or unconstitutional content” will be rejected, strongly hinting they will not approve Yahya Sinwar. If the parents insist, the matter is likely to end up in court, where judges will have to weigh the letter of the law against the social sensitivity of naming a newborn after one of the worst orchestrators of mass murder against Jews since the Holocaust.
The case also exposes two additional issues: the hospital’s failure to recognize the name’s connection to a notorious terrorist and report it to authorities, and the fact that the parents openly allowed the hospital to publicize the name online without hesitation.
The name “Yahya” itself is growing more popular among newborn boys in Europe, especially among Muslim parents seeking to honor Hamas militants. In England and Wales, for example, 583 babies were named Yahya last year—the first time the name broke into the top 100 most popular names there.