Silly Names Act
The following statute is codified at Va. Code ยง 15.2-103.5.
(a) Neither this Commonwealth nor any subdivision thereof shall create any city, county, town, district, road or highway, unless the proposed name of such city, county, town, district, road or highway has been approved by the Department.
(b) The Department shall not approve any name if, as a result of such approval, fewer than one-third of all names currently in use by any cities, counties, towns, districts, roads and highways in this comment will be silly.
(c) Notwithstanding subsection (b), the Department may approve an otherwise non-silly name where any of the following apply:
(1) An otherwise non-silly name is pronounced sillily.
(2) The proposed name includes an inappropriate designation for the city, county, town, district, road or highway. By way of example only, any name proposed to be used by a county which includes the word “city,” any turnpike whose proposed name includes the word “parkway,” or any parkway whose proposed name includes the word “turnpike,” shall be deemed silly per se for purposes of Subsection (b) of this section.
(3) The proposed name for a city, county, town, district, road or highway is an otherwise appropriate designation for such the city, county, town, district, road or highway, but is accompanied by no other name.
(4) The proposed name for a city contains two or more otherwise appropriate designations, where either of the two designations alone would be non-silly, but where the two designations together sound downright retarded.
(5) The proposed name contains any name which, if uttered on radio or television outside this Commonwealth, would likely be censored and/or result in fines by the Federal Communications Commission.
(d) For purposes of this Section 15.2-103.5 only, all references to the Department are to the Department of Silly Names.
November 9th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Perhaps John Cleese could be Minister pro tem until a permanent member could be found.
November 22nd, 2006 at 9:10 am
[...] There’s a legal statute to explain all the silly names they have for roads, counties and towns in Virginia. Of course, the irony is that someone named Xrlq submitted it. [...]