Richard Nixon was arrested for fraud this week in what is likely to prove a severe blow to his political career. Six days earlier, Karl Max was detained for trafficking the modern opium of the masses – class A drugs. Elvis, meanwhile, suffered heartbreak at the weekend with a no-show at what would have been his biggest ever stadium gig.

Scan the news websites in Brazil and you might at first suspect that you have been transported in time and space, stumbled across a typographically flawed spoof, or been stuck with a collection of old and unlikely April Fools articles.

But these stories – all of which are recent and genuine – simply reflect the creativity, humour and eccentricity of a nation that may well go further than any other in its open-mindedness to unusual names.

Nixon is the mayor of Bacuri in Maranhão state who was among a group of local politicians arrested on Tuesday for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars of public funds. Karl Max (sic) Azevedo Wiborg is a 23-year-old from Rio de Janeiro who faces up to 15 years in prison after police caught him selling drugs to students at a university. Elvis, a midfielder with the Botafogo football team, missed the second half of the final of the Carioca championship – the most important game of his career – due to muscle injury.

Such names may raise eyebrows abroad, but they are far from unusual In Brazil. While Britons may have gasped at news that the latest royal baby will be christened Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, that royal name is – by Brazilian standards – short, humdrum and spelled all too conventionally.

For a truly ambitious name, consider the Recife man Tchaikovsky Johannsen Adler Pryce Jackman Faier Ludwin Zolman Hunter Lins. Or the young footballer christened Wonarllevyston Garlan Marllon Branddon Bruno Paullynelly Mell Oliveira Pereira.

For outlandishness, it is hard to beat the musician who notoriously named his three children Xerox, Autenticada (Notarized) and Fotocópia (Photocopy) – all words he saw at the civil office where he registered the births. Far from being cowed by this unusual moniker, his son Xerox then went on to name four of his own children Xerlaine, Xequira, Xeroline and Carimbo (Stamp).

For unconventional spellings, you only need to look on Brazilian social networks, where you can find countless Leide Daianas (Lady Diana) and Edsons after the inventor, Thomas Edison (and later the original name of Pelé). A more debatable choice was made by the parents of Hitler Mussoline (sic) Domingues Pacheco, the chief of police in the state of Goiás, who was fired for dereliction of duty after prosecutors implicated him in a cases of fraud, theft and the murder of an emerald mine owner.

In theory, article 55 of Brazil’s 1973 Public Records Act forbids civil registries from accepting names that “might expose the holders to ridicule”. But the futility of this prohibition is recognised by a further law that allows any person to change their given names within a year of reaching maturity. Remarkably few do. Flamboyant monikers – such as Skylab, Nausea and Welfare – are often a source of pride.

Numerous explanations have been given for this tendency. Some suggest a unique set of first names is needed to stand out due to the ubiquity of the most common surnames (Silva alone accounts for more than one in 10 Brazilians , while Smith and Jones combined barely account for one in 50 people in England. Others point to a culture of informality and what what were – until recently – low literacy levels, which leads to multiple misspellings of classical names. Part of the reason may also be a fascination for all things foreign, hence the many phone book entries for Washington, Jefferson and Wilson.

John Kennedy Azevedo de Holanda, a resident of Recife, said he was given the name by a military father who admired the former US president. “It’s been more positive than negative. The good part is that people hear the name and want to know who it is. They want to know who you are. I think it’s cool,” he said. “The bad part is that I hardly know anything about John Kennedy. My dad has a picture of him up on the wall. But when people ask me about him, they think I’m ignorant!”

Less common, but far from unique are Lenin, Trotsky, Mao Tse Tung, Napoleon Bonaparte and Saddam Hussein. These appellations may be motivated by ideology, but more commonly, parents say they choose names because they sound attractive or conjure up pleasant images, hence the children called Hollywood or Valdisnêi (Walt Disney).

Osny Neves, a former notary officer and author of a book on peculiar names, said poorly educated or deaf registrars were often responsible for mangled spellings. But in many cases, romantic or mischievous parents were to blame.

“Some parents are just big jokers and have no love for their child,” he said, citing names such as Odranoel (Leonardo backwards) and Ana Cirema (Americana backwards). “As a result, many people are exposed to ridicule. But with a lawyer you can get your name changed for this reason.”

Others, he said, learn to love the impact on their identity such as a child named Scwartzeneger (sic), who grew up to become a physical education teacher.

So many footballers have fantastic names that it is possible to form outlandish dream teams entirely comprised of players named after philosophers (Sócrates), comic superheroes (Hulk), 19th century German statesmen (Bismark), musicians (Creedence Clearwater Couto and John Lennon Silva Santos), actors (Marlon Brandão) or political gurus (Mahatma Gandhi Heberpio Mattos Pires).

But not everyone on Brazilian team sheets sounds quite so exotic to the English speaker’s ear. Two of the biggest names in Rio de Janeiro are the Botafogo striker Rosimar Amancio and the Fluminense forward Frederico Chaves Guedes – better known simply as Bill and Fred.

Additional reporting by Shanna Hanbury