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UK store denies Swedish woman a card because of her ‘rude’ name

A Swedish woman living in London was denied a store card when she registered for it online because her first name is considered a rude word for vagina in the UK.

Fanny Carlsson, 19, has worked at natural beauty chain The Body Shop for five months, but was rejected a points card by the supermarket Sainbury’s because her first name was “invalid”.

Fanny, from Uddevalla in the southwest of the Scandinavian country, said that she saw the funny side to the incident and has now got a card with her middle name, Linnea, on it. She explained that she knew the meaning of ‘fanny’ before moving to the UK so already went by Linnea at work and among all her new friends except the Swedes she meets.

Website Svenska Namn reported that there were more than 10,000 women and one man named Fanny in Sweden. The name used to be common in the UK, with Fanny Price the main character in Jane Austin’s Mansfield Park, but in recent decades it has gone out of fashion after the emergence of it as a popular slang name for vagina.

When the words “Please enter a valid first name” appeared after Fanny first filled out the online application form, she tweeted that she “loved being called Fanny and living in the UK”. The tweet soon went viral in her home country and she has since amassed a number of new followers.

Fanny added that her parents were aware she had encountered some problems with her name, so were relieved they had given her a middle name she could use in such situations.