A Journalist Tested Australia's Baby-Naming Rules & Now She Has An Infant Named Meth Rules

Move over, Tau Techno Mechanicus, there’s a new poorly named baby in town.

Meet Methamphetamine Rules, a tiny newborn baby boy who entered this world in New South Wales, Australia, last month. How did he get such a ridiculous and terrible moniker? Well, it was an accident, sort of.

Baby Meth’s mom is Australian journalist Kirsten Drysdale, who was working on a story for ABC about how baby name regulations work in her home country for a lighthearted news segment called WTFAQ. Down Under, you must submit your baby name for approval via a government registry, and there are limitations on what’s accepted. For example, you can’t give your baby the name of a title (like King, President, or General), a name that includes symbols, or a name that’s deemed inappropriate.

The rules also state that if the parents of a baby can’t find an appropriate name, the baby will be assigned a name by the state — but they don’t say what that name will be.

Drysdale, who was 9 months pregnant at the time, decided that if she gave her baby an obviously terrible and offensive name, she could find out what kind of name the state would assign. But instead, the name was approved by the government and her baby was officially christened Methamphetamine Rules.

“I don’t know how it slipped through. I’m not sure if someone was overworked, or if it was automated somewhere,” she said in an ABC news video about the incident. “Or possibly, maybe they thought Methamphetamine was a Greek name. They haven’t really given us a clear answer.”

The NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages apologized for not catching their mistake and says that their process for approving names has been updated since the slip-up — so don’t count on trying to sneak through a baby name Colonel Cocaine Bear, because they are now on high alert for hijinks.

Drysdale and her husband are keeping the baby’s new and actual name private, but something tells me that the new choice might be a little more mainstream. Now they just have to legally switch it over, which should be happening very soon.

“It’s a beautiful name and I can tell you has nothing to do with class A drugs,” she said on the news program.

Of course, the baby’s nickname is still up in the air.

“My husband said maybe his nickname should be ‘Speedy’, but I’m sure he will develop his own nickname that’s appropriate to his real name and his personality,” Drysdale told The Guardian. “He’s a very chill child, a beautiful baby boy, so not anything like a meth user.”