A Chinese citizen was told to "keep it simple" by Chinese police
who turned down his request to register a very long name for his
son, saying it could not be managed by a computer.
Ouyang Chenggong, who lives in the Jiangbei District of
southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, wanted to change his
boy's name from "Ouyang Zumin" to the 8-character mouthful "Ouyang
Cheng Gong Fen Fa Tu Qiang", the Chongqing Evening News
reported on Tuesday.
Most Chinese names only contain two or three characters.
Ouyang is a Chinese family name which contains two characters,
and the name "Cheng Gong Fen Fa Tu Qiang", which includes the idea
of "success" (cheng gong), could be translated as "go all out to
achieve success (fen fa tu qiang)".
In giving his son the long name, the father was expressing his
hope that his son would study and work hard and make achievements
through his own efforts, the paper said.
Ouyang said he had looked up dictionaries, consulted
fortune-tellers and asked for opinions from the whole family before
determining the new name.
But his application was rejected by local police - the name is
so long the computer could not display it.
"A long name with four, five or more characters is too unwieldy
in the information era," the newspaper quoted an official with the
household registration department of the local public security
bureau as saying.
"Parents should never exceed six characters when they name their
kids," he said.
In a move to reduce name repetitions -- which are also a problem
in China - the Ministry of Public Security has drafted a new
regulation on name registration, which allows a baby to have the
combined surname of father and mother.
A nationwide survey released by the ministry in April shows that
about 85 percent of Chinese people share only 100 surnames, with
Wang being the most popular. There are 93 million Wangs in China,
followed closely by 92 million with the family name Li and 88
million called Zhang.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has reported that at least
100,000 people share the name "Wang Tao", making it the most
popular.
"Rejection was a blow. Either I find a way to retain my son's
original name or I have to look for a new name with fewer
characters," Ouyang said.
(Xinhua News Agency June 20, 2007)