1. The Spanish parliament is currently debating a law according to which children would bear the family names of both parents in alphabetical order unless the parents expressly desire a different solution. Until now the father’s name has always preceded the mother’s.
“This signifies the end of the macho era in Spain,” writes Italian daily La Stampa (November 5): “This reform has high symbolic value and signifies the end of a society in which until recently everything revolved around men. Times have changed and keep on changing. Equality is a serious matter in Spain, not only at election time. It has been a priority of the government since Zapatero took office in 2004. One of the first things his government did was to pass a law on violence against women that has led not only to the creation of a network of shelters for women, but also to much money being invested in prevention. It is surprising that despite the crisis and political difficulties this government has not lost sight of the civil rights and the role of women.”
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2. The most popular boy’s name in England last year was Mohammed. After counting different ways of spelling the name, CNN found that the most popular baby’s name was not Oliver, which appeared to top the list, but Mohammed, followed by Oliver, Jack, Thomas, Charles, Harry, William, and Daniel. The U.K. has about 2.9 million Muslims, or 4.6 percent of the population.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
What happens to the next generation? Instead of two names the child will have four names, the following generation will have eight and so on. Which of the names will be dropped. As far as I know in Austria you can choose either the mother’s or the father’s name for the children. This makes more sense.
It can almost be truly said, as Samuel Goldwyn said about John, that, in England, every Tom, Dick, and Harry is named Mohammed.
So two of the top English names are what used to be thought of as nicknames – Jack and Harry. I suspect that Harry outpaces the royal brother William because of the Potter influence, which probably also boosted Daniel’s rating.
But don’t be tricked into calling a teddy bear Mohammed in a fervently Islamic country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_teddy_bear_blasphemy_case.