Here’s another one from dear Education Ministry. They’ve set up a training course and competition called Robocop. When it comes to the government itself no name is off limits.
For those of you who might not know why this is amusing, I should give an explanation. In Iran, authorities have an issue with names, especially foreign names, western names to be exact. So they’ve decided to put their noses into everyone’s business. For example, you can’t name your child whatever you want. When you go in to register, if you utter an uncommon or western sounding name, an imbecile will stare you in the face and tell you you cannot name your child that. There’s probably a growing blacklist for names as well. If you want to name your child Melody, or Fleur, you better go in with a backup plan – have Zeynab or Roghiyeh ready too. Now I would never want to name a child Melody anyway, no matter where I live, but it’s logical to assume others might want to and they should be able to. What’s worse, is that they’re phasing out some old Persian names too, like those of ancient rulers, or ones containing the word “king” or its derivatives – Khashayar or Shahrokh. Even the Arabic work Amir is now condemned. No more Amirs, but Amir Hosseins and Amir Mohammads should be fine.
Businesses are not immune to this either. If you registered your company 40 years ago with a foreign name, lucky you. Otherwise, you can not call yourself “Apache” and expect to be left alone. You can’t even call your product that. “Apache” – a fast food joint – indeed changed its name to “Avache” which has meaning in Farsi. Even “Mc Mashallah”, another fast food place, was not spared. The best of these is “Ice Pack”. I don’t know if the story behind it is true, or just urban legend, but I’ve heard it from many people. “Ice Pack” is a chain in Iran that sells a Slurpee kind of thing, and it’s a huge hit. A while back, I started noticing a frog appearing on their store signs with the slogan “Hopeless Frog” underneath it. Apparently, when the owner of the chain was notified that he could not call his business or product “Ice pack” as it was clearly English, he went home and took out the books and did some research. The result was he managed to keep the name, but had to add that slogan to clarify things a bit. Why? Well, “ice” can be read “ayes” in Farsi, which is a word rooted in “ya’s” meaning hopelessness or despair. And “pack” is the equivalent of “vak” meaning frog in some remote dialect. So “ayes pak” translates into “Hopeless Frog”. I guess the poor authorities’ only retort was to have the guy print that on everything. If this is true, hats off to this guy, seriously.