----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Demi Moore BLP name
"...more reliable than Demi Moore herself."
Such a conclusion is nonsense.
To take a personal example, no amount of examination of my birth
certificate, or publication of its contents, is going to result in me
changing my name to what it says.
Fred
Or, to put it another way, hearsay evidence is generally inadmissible
because it is not susceptible to testing by cross-examination. But there are
exceptions so numerous as to have led to comments that the "hearsay rule" no
longer exists. As I understand it, one's name is whatever one wants it to
be, unless it is changed for fraudulent purposes, so if Demi Moore wants to
call herself Demetria *now*, she may do so; but that cannot change the name
given by her parents, which would appear to be fixed by her birth
certificate.