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From now on, Chinese parents can no longer freely choose what name they would like to give to their kid, instead, they have to pick one from the Namebase compiled by the Ministry of Public Security. The new rule has nothing to do with the Population and Family Planning Law (2002), and neither does it seem a phenomenon of habitual control that we readily expect from news on China.
In fact, the restriction is necessitated by technology: as Chinese bureaucracy gets more and more computerised, weird characters (OK, all of them are weird but some are even weirder) get the sack. The new electronic ID cards to be introduced will only contain names that are easily decipherable to speed up administrative processes at tax offices, airports, or when one wants to settle Google invoices. Bao Suixian, a deputy director at the Ministry of Public Security said "We cannot handwrite rare characters on the cards like we did before," (China Daily).
But how come that, according to Jane Macartney, as many as 60 million Chinese are affected by the new regulation? Is the uncommon the most common? On the one hand, there is always a trend to give some peculiarity to a kid from birth (see soap opera infections in most countries), on the other hand, the traditional Chinese view is that a well-chosen name influences the child's future, so the more promising the name is, the more prospective future awaits him/her. The most popular simple words are, 'beauty' for girls and 'strength' for boys. Clear enough. However, to make sure that babies strike it lucky, it is best to go to a fortuneteller or a 'name specialist' in China. Understandably, the news does not make them too happy. At least, from now they will have to work from a thinner registry.
Are Chinese keyboards endangered species?
Can the exclusion of thousands of strange characters be taken a pivotal turning point of a spelling simplification process that brings Chinese and English writing systems closer to each other? Is it another step on the way to global transparency due to intensifying communication on the web (personal, commercial, whatever)? How long will computational linguistics struggle with the discrepancies between world languages? And how many of you are planning to learn Chinese to make sure that you are young enough to absorb the basics? (I'm afraid, I am planning to learn Chinenglish.) And what about the world Namebase in 2100? I hope Anna will stay in. And Elvis.
One thing is sure, the new ban will facilitate the popularisation of Mandarin. Oh, and another, kids will be happier to learn fewer characters.
Babyname ban in China
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- Public Discussion (10)
Why not do away with names altogether and simply barcode your kids at birth? I'm not sure being number E5623143 is worse than living live as Sunny Future Jones or Hezariah Epiphany Smith. Bring back the traditional names, such as Betty, Mary or even Ed.
#1 - Thu Mar 23, 2006 9:42 AM ESTSounds to me as if they have it in for the hippies.
I will continue to suspect that this is the case unless they prove me wrong by including such names as Rainbow, Sunset, Peace, Flower, River, & Love.
#2 - Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:16 PM EST
well, I live in Beijing and no one here seems to think this regulation will ever be enforced. I also know 3 girls whose english names are Rainbow :) Many chinese people pick english names that sound simliar to their chinese names.
About the authors rhetorical question - is this the end of chinese keyboards ? um, hate to break the news to you, but chinese use the same keyboards with qwerty layout that people in the west do. You type in a word in pinyin, and a drop-down menu appears with the selection of hanzi characters that you choose from.
so many myths about China ! grrr......
- 5 votes
#4 - Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:19 AM ESTHello there,
Ma Ding, thank you for your comment, I push it up with a vote. May I ask why people are sceptical about the enforcement? thanx, Anna
Another thing: I think Rainbow could be soon less strange for western ears than it is today, why not? 'Normal' English etc. names have also interesting etymologies that are simply forgotten by these days (Peter means "Rock" and comes from the Greek "Petras" but there are many pebble Peters, for instance).
#5 - Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:14 AM ESTI'm not skeptical about the enforcement--I'm skeptical about whether or not this is a good idea.
Anyway, I'm glad that there isn't any law like that coming around the bend here in the USA.
While there might be people here who name their kids Syphillus and Gonorhea, or Da Niece and Da Nephew, they are few and far between.
I was given an "unusual" (back in 1952 though more common these days) name (handed down from my mom and handed down to her from the wife of a cousin). Before I got to the age where it now seems highly unlikely that I'll be having any kids, I'd thought that I'd share the name with my first daughter. If my name hadn't ended up becoming less unusual and if I'd had that daughter, I wouldn't be upset should she decide to break the tradition and name her daughter Rainbow Flower but I would be upset if she couldn't pass the family name on due to some government regulation.
#6 - Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:19 PM ESTAs I understand it, the list of approved name characters is NOT a list of approved names.
There are 12,000 characters approved which will allow for over 100 million combinations. From these, there should be enough good combinations to allow for thousands if not millions of rare, attractive names.
But how come that, according to Jane Macartney, as many as 60 million Chinese are affected by the new regulation? Is the uncommon the most common?
Short answer: Yes.
A lot of people choose rare words and word combinations because they make for a more unique, erudite, and dignified name.
The typing problem:
There are over 80,000 characters in the Chinese language. But only 3,500 are used 99% of the time. In Mandarin Chinese, all 80,000 are pronounced using about 400 syllables. This means there are a lot of homonyms.
"There are too many characters with same sound value, some have as many as a few dozens of them, if not a few hundred. Therefore, Chinese word processor with Pinyin system requires selection process, out of so many candidates. Fortunately, some advanced processor displays candidate characters by the frequencies of usage to shorten the time to look up. However, less frequently used characters require lots of time to look up and select the right one."
- 1 vote
#7 - Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:25 PM ESTIn due course of time the approved treasure of characters might get bigger in China, if we consider the Japanese example (the kanji list for names has expanded over decades).
It would be interesting to know how many nicknames an average person who actively uses the web chooses to work with. Complete freedom there, for sure.
#8 - Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:45 AM ESTHmm. My comment above didn't get any votes even though I provided clear, researched information about why this will save the Chinese bureaucracy a lot computer headaches. I think this issue matters because there are other real freedom of speech issues people could protest and this is not one of them. This list is not at all like the lists of allowed baby names in Germany and elsewhere. There is still vast room for expression and choice within these 12,000 characters. I don't see any motive to reduce freedom of expression in this move. There is still a lot that can be said with those 12,000 characters. I also fail to see any truly adverse effects on freedom of expression. I will write an article explaining this better in my own column.
MaDing, I too am curious -- why don't people think this will be enforced? Out of these 12,000 characters, will people still be able to come up with rare names with poetic allusions or ancient references? I am fluent enough in Chinese to understand that this is not a serious restriction on popular expression, but I don't know what kind of literary or philosophical impact this could have...
- 1 vote
#9 - Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:16 PM ESTyou are right andria, it really deserves a vote. :)
"I think this issue matters because there are other real freedom of speech issues people could protest and this is not one of them."
I couldn't agree more. I hope the article does not seem to be a freedom speech, at least was not meant to be. The aim was to provoke discussion. When I said "In fact, the restriction is necessitated by technology" I also meant that it is somehow sensible. Although omitting rare, so far handwritten characters is obviously a sort of loss, and maybe mainly loss for the name specialists' database, I do not find it tragic (the pool is really vast, and change in language is the most natural thing, I believe)
Anyway, I find the job name specialist quite interesting (full time at all? how respected? who can be one? ever met one? or consulted with one? etc.) I hope MaDing will return. :)
- 1 vote
#10 - Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:14 AM ESTYou're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
