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If I name my son "Nintendo", and my son goes on to make headlines doing bad things, I can imagine the company named "Nintendo" wouldn't be too happy. Similarly if I named my kid "Google" or "Microsoft" or "Sony", etc..

As such, would the name you give your child be subject to copyright/trademark law?

As a follow-up, what about if I wanted to legally change my name to "Nintendo"? Lastly, what about the names of fictional characters? E.g. writing a story and having the main villain named "Nintendo"?

chausies
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NO

The Names of actual people can neither be trademarked nor can a name have a valid copyrighted. There is no valid market class for names of people, making it impossible to register a trademark in that category. As a result, neither copyright nor trademark will prevent someone from attempting to name a kid "Nintendo" or "Sony Music".

While you could try to name your kid Nintendo, unless you are in the US, most countries like or do safeguard what you can name a child. Those countries will deny your name as endangering the (mental) health of the child or in other way making the child a target for mockery. Compare to names in all lowercase, line breaks, and infinitely long names.

Trish
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Trademarks only protect against use of a name in trade, e.g. as the name of a company, product, or service. Additionally, a trademark has a scope of a particular industry that the trademark owner registers it in, which is usually just their area of business. For instance, Cadillac is a registered trademark of two different companies -- one makes automobiles, the other makes dog food. There's no likelihood of confusion, so they don't infringe each other.

Some famous names like Coca Cola and Nintendo enjoy protection over all industries, though.

A personal name is not used in trade, unless they name a company after themselves, as in Steve's Ice Cream (founded by Steve Herrell) or McDonald's (the original location was owned by Richard and Maurice McDonald).

So unless little Nintendo Jones decides to name his business or product Nintendo, he has little to fear from the game company. But if he gets caught in a public sex scandal, I doubt they would have any legal case against him, even if it causes the company some embarassment because people mistakenly think he's associated with them.

Barmar
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