Kim Sarubbi runs a digital consulting firm. Her husband, Carl Abramson, is a chiropractor. The couple moved to Nashville from Santa Monica, Calif. Their first two kids were born outside Tennessee, and their last names are a blend of their parents’ surnames, Sarubbi and Abramson.

“We said, ‘All right, if we take the first three letters of each of our names,’a-b-r’ and ‘s-a-r,’ it perfectly combines to ‘s-a-b-r.’ Sabr,” Abramson says…

Eddie Weeks, the state’s law librarian, says a 1970s Tennessee law “makes it point-blank clear that, no, you cannot combine two names in any way other than the whole last name of both parents, or either surname of either parent.”

To be clear, the Sabrs could go to court and pay $150 to change the baby’s name. But they don’t want to have to do that. They want to put whatever name they want for their kid on the birth certificate.