The Given Name, and the Registration Machine: An Educational Article
Nomen est quasi nota hominis – a name is, as it were, the mark of a man. But which name? And whose mark?
Part I: The Original Doctrine – What Is an Addition?
The doctrine of additions has its roots in classical English common law and was codified for a specific procedural purpose by the Statute of Additions 1413, known formally as 1 Henry V, c. 5. The doctrine recognised that a man’s name could carry with it appended descriptions – of his estate or quality, his trade or mystery, or his place of residence. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary sets out the three categories with precision:
Additions of estate or quality: titles such as esquire or gentleman. Bouvier notes these “can be claimed by none, and may be assumed by any one.”
Additions of mystery: descriptions of trade or occupation, such as scrivener, painter, printer, or manufacturer.
Additions of place: descriptions by residence, such as “John Henry of Perth.”
Crucially, the common law position was that no addition was necessary in any case. As stated in 2 Lord Raymond 988, the requirement arose only under the 1413 statute, and only where process of outlawry lay. In all other cases, an addition is simply a description of the man, and common reputation suffices.
This is not a minor point. It means the given name stands alone as the foundational identifier of the man. Everything appended to it is descriptive. Description is not identity.
Part II: The Current Status of the Statute in the UK and Australia
The Statute of Additions 1413 is no longer operative as a live enactment in either jurisdiction.
In England and Wales, the abolition of outlawry by the Criminal Law Act 1967 extinguished the operative purpose of the statute. Court process is now governed by the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 and Criminal Procedure Rules 2020. The statute is spent.
In Western Australia, English law was received as at 1 June 1829, the date of settlement. The Statute of Additions would technically have been received as part of that body of law. However, it does not appear on the list of imperial statutes retained under the Imperial Acts (Retention) Act 1984 (WA) or preserved by the Interpretation Act 1984 (WA). It is not operative in WA law.
Across all Australian jurisdictions, the Rules of Court govern the description of parties. In WA, the Rules of the Supreme Court 1971 (WA) apply. Outlawry was never a live process in Australian colonial law and was formally extinguished across all jurisdictions by the mid-twentieth century.
What does survive, and this is the substance of the matter, is the common law principle the statute reflected: that addition is description, not essential identity, and that the man and the descriptions attached to him are distinct in law.
Part III: The Given Name as Evidenced by Form RG201
In Western Australia, a birth is notified under the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1998 (WA) by a registered midwife or attending practitioner using form RG201 (“BIRTH INFORMATION PAPER” ~1960). This form is the Notification of Birth. It records the birth event and the name the parents have given to the child. It is lodged before the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Office (BDM) generates its own registered entry.
This sequencing matters enormously. The RG201 captures the given name as the primary identifying act of the parents. It precedes the state’s own registration process. The birth certificate that the BDM subsequently issues is a statutory instrument, a record of the registered event. It is not evidence of the man’s name in the common law sense. It is the state’s own record, generated by the state’s own machinery, for the state’s own administrative purposes.
The RG201 therefore stands as evidence of the given name in its foundational form: the name as given, prior to registration, prior to statutory processing.
Part IV: Every Subsequent Appending Is an Addition
From the foregoing, the proposition follows clearly. Take the given name “John Henry” as evidenced by form RG201. At common law:
“John Henry” is the name of the man. It is the primary identifier, given by his parents and evidenced by the notification document prior to any state registration.
Every element appended, prefixed, or added to “John Henry” thereafter is, in the classical sense, an addition. It is description. It is not the man.
This can be set out in a plain taxonomy:
John Henry – the given name of the living man, evidenced by RG201.
“Doe” or any surname – addition of family name, appended by the registration machinery.
“JOHN HENRY DOE” in capitals – a statutory construct, generated by the BDM registration process.
“Mr”, “Dr”, “esquire” and similar – additions of estate or quality, as Bouvier defines them.
Address, occupation, ABN, TFN, and similar – additions of place or mystery, descriptive only.
None of the items in the second to fifth rows is the man. Each is a description attached to a name, or a construct derived from the registration of an event. The registration of a birth event is not the same act as identifying the man. The event occurred. The man exists. The registration describes the event for the state’s purposes. It does not constitute the man.
Part V: The Practical Significance and Its Limits
The argument that the given name is foundational and that all additions are descriptive is structurally sound at common law. It gains further weight when the evidentiary chain is clear: RG201 as the parents’ act, the birth certificate as the state’s subsequent administrative record. The distinction between those two instruments is real and legally meaningful.
The practical significance of this is that a man can legitimately distinguish himself, as ens reale, the living man, from the statutory constructs bearing additions to his name. When a court or institution addresses “JOHN HENRY DOE” or “Mr John Henry Doe”, it is addressing an addition-laden construct. Whether that construct properly attaches to the man, and whether the man has accepted or consented to that identification, is a separate question that must be answered by the party asserting it.
However, this doctrine must be understood accurately and deployed precisely.
It does not confer immunity from statute or court process by itself. Courts operate under the presumption that the man before them is the man named in the proceedings. Displacing that presumption requires clear, consistent, and well-grounded assertion on the record.
The principle that “common reputation is sufficient” (2 Lord Raymond 849) cuts in both directions. It means the state cannot strictly insist on a formal addition as essential to identity. It also means a man is presumed to be the one commonly known by those additions unless he clearly and unambiguously distinguishes himself from them on the record.
The argument is most powerful when used precisely: to place before a court or institution the clear distinction between the living man identified by his given name and the statutory construct identified by the addition-laden name. That is a question of identity. It is not a question that can be answered by the state unilaterally by affixing additions to a given name through its own registration machinery.
Nomina sunt mutabilia, res autem immobiles. Names are changeable; things themselves are not. The man is prior to and independent of everything the state’s registration machinery appends to the record of his birth.
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