China Cracks Down on Pesky Names

Image by Flikr user _ES

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Remember Tiki Tiki Tembo, the story of the unfortunately named Tikki Tikki Tembo-No Sa Rembo-Chari Bari Ruchi-Pip Peri Pembo, the Chinese boy with a name so extensive it was hazardous to the boy’s health?

Well, China’s had it with the unique names. Earlier this month Mother Jones reported on the wacky story of Texas legislator Betty Brown, who recommended that Asians adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.” Now China itself thinks it’s time to simplify its citizens’ names. According to Monday’s New York Times, the People’s Republic of China is upgrading the country’s identity cards; its Public Security Bureau will replace the handwritten one currently used with a new card with color photos and embedded microchips that can be read by a computer. As the article explained:

The bureau’s computers, however, are programmed to read only 32,252 of the roughly 55,000 Chinese characters, according to a 2006 government report. The result is that… some of the 60 million… Chinese with obscure characters in their names cannot get new cards — unless they change their names to something more common.

So people saddled with unusual characters must essentially choose new given names. The trouble is that many parents delight in choosing unique or obscure historical first names for their children, at least in part because the country has so few last names. About 85 percent of Chinese citizens share only 100 surnames.

Like so many things Chineseindustrialization strategy, the one child policy—the name change plan seems rational at first but, given its implications, destructive and tyrannical. While I have to admit I’d find it refreshing to avoid hearing people tell me they’ve decided to give their children essentially made-up names like Kayden and Colton or Aubrey and Sienna, the new China policy is, well, creepy.

Though not quite as baffling as Taiwan’s toilet restaurant.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate