Meet the baby who has her sign language name on her birth certificate

Have you fallen asleep on the keyboard?

Very funny, but Hazel UbOtDDstarL Holly Eileen Garfield-Lichy has become the first person to have her sign name recognised on her birth certificate.

OK, so what’s the meaning of UbOtDDstarL?

The unique name is a series of British Sign Language symbols, but it does not just spell out “Hazel”. Hazel’s parents, Paula Garfield and Tomato Lichy, said it was intended to reflect her personality.

So what does it look like?

According to the British Sign Language Broadcast Trust (BSLBT), which broke the news, the U directs the hand to be held at the chin; bO instructs to make a “baby O” – or a small “O” symbol – between the thumb and forefinger; tD means “hands facing the signer”; and the final symbols Dstar and L mean “the handshape opens into an L-shape”. BSLBT experts said this could reflect the fact that baby Hazel smiles or laughs a lot.

Why is Hazel the first to have her BSL name recognised?

It wasn’t easy for her parents, from North London to get BSL on to their daughter’s birth certificate. When they tried to do so with their first daughter, Molly, in 2005, they were told by a Register Office that it simply wasn’t possible. “We were told ‘what do you want to do that for?’ and ‘you can’t’,” Mr Lichy recalled. Her father was upset by the negative response, and asked: “Why did it have to be registered in English?” After all, BSL has been recognised as an official language in 2003.

So, a breakthrough?

With the help of a solicitor, the couple took the case to the Home Office and it was agreed that under the Human Rights Act the pair had “a right to register in BSL”.

“At last we’d done it,” said Mr Lichy.

Ms Garfield, a theatre director, expressed her relief. “The law is there and we have rights,” she said, “sign language is stronger than we thought.”

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