Officials in Azerbaijan have refused to allow registration of the parent’s choice for their new baby boy’s name.  The parents are Baptists and they want their baby named after the prophet Elijah.  That’s a no-no in the tiny but oil-rich nation with an overwhelmingly Muslim population.

Born on June 18 to a Christian family in northern Azerbaijan, three-month-old Ilya Eyvazov still has no official name.

Local authorities in the town of Aliabad at first refused to issue a birth certificate when the baby’s father, Novruz Eyvazov, tried to register his son’s birth on June 21.

“Impossible,” city administration officials told Novruz Eyvazov when they saw his son’s name was the Russian form of Elijah.

“They said it was because it was a Christian name,” said the Baptist church member.

Three months after the child’s birth, a government office finally issued a birth certificate, but the name field has been left blank.

Mr Eyvazov, who became a Christian in 1997, has five previous children.  He had great difficulty getting proper birth certificates for his last two children, boys named Moisei (Moses) and Luka (Luke).  It took 3 months for Moisei and 18 months for Luka.

Aliabad, a town of 10,000 people, has three Baptist congregations that are subject to frequent harassment and persecution.

Many local people, including some government officials, believe that giving babies Christian names is part of a plot to transfer the northern Azeri region of Zaqatala to neighbouring Georgia.

h/t: Persecution Blog

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