It used to be a legal obligation for parents to choose their child's name from a list that was pre-approved by the government. Special permission was necessary for other names; of course there were exceptions for minorities, foreigners etc. Since the Velvet revolution in 1989, parents have had the right to give their child any name they wish, provided it is used somewhere in the world and is not insulting or demeaning. However, in recent years the common practice has been that most birth-record offices look for the name in the book "Jak se bude vaše dítě jmenovat?" (What is your child going to be called?), which is a semi-official list of "allowed" names. If the name is not found there, authorities are extremely unwilling to register the child's name.