"In a country comfortable with a firm state role, most people don't question the Personal Names Register, a list of 1,712 male names and 1,853 female names..."

"... that fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules and that officials maintain will protect children from embarrassment. Parents can take from the list or apply to a special committee that has the power to say yea or nay."

In Blaer's case, her mother said she learned the name wasn't on the register only after the priest who baptized the child later informed her he had mistakenly allowed it.

"I had no idea that the name wasn't on the list, the famous list of names that you can choose from," said Bjork Eidsdottir, adding she knew a Blaer whose name was accepted in 1973. This time, the panel turned it down on the grounds that the word Blaer [which means "light breeze" in Icelandic] takes a masculine article, despite the fact that it was used for a female character in a novel by Iceland's revered Nobel Prize-winning author Halldor Laxness.

Parents express themselves through their naming of children. There are many things parents do to children that are expressive. To some extent, we intercede on behalf of the children. Where would you draw the line? In this case, the child is now 15, and she says she loves her name.

"The Most Feminist Place in the World."

You know it's got to be Iceland.

[A]ctivists from Stigamot, the rape crisis center in Reykjavik, gave Knut Storberget, Norwegian justice minister, black boxer-briefs with the words I Am Responsible written down the crotch....

Feminism, or at least the notion of gender equality, has so infused politics that, a couple of years ago, women members of Parliament performed The Vagina Monologues....

There are also new feminine spaces in the economy. As the economy went into overdrive, Kristín Pétursdóttir and Halla Tomasdóttir, who had been warning of disaster from her position at the Chamber of Commerce, founded Auður Capital, a “financial service company emphasizing feminine values and social responsibility.”...

Puffin...

... stuff.

Iceland as "a desolate, magical place where human beings have little right to trespass."

So maybe you shouldn't travel there, but you can watch the documentary "Heima" ("Homeland") with the music of Sigur Rós — offered for streaming here on YouTube. It's also supposedly downloadable free on the band's website here, but I couldn't figure out where to click after I'd entered my information and received my code — so that was a little too desolate and magical for my taste.

Talk about Iceland, talk about traveling and not traveling, talk about majestic, other-worldly, ethereal music.