The paper deals with the Danish law on personal names which was issued in 2006. The paper discusses the cultural and historical background of this law and earlier laws from 1904, 1961 and 1981. The 2006-law is less prohibitive and it opens for a wider range of name changes than the earlier laws. The most important novelties are presented followed by estimations of the effects which the new law has had on the Danish name stock. Within the first year, c. 115.000 Danes changed their names out of a total population of c. 5.5 million inhabitants. Finally, the paper discusses the future for the Danish legislation on personal names.