BEIJING (AP) -- A Chinese couple seeking a distinctive and modern name for their child chose the commonly used Internet 'at' symbol, much to the consternation of Chinese officials.
The unidentified couple and the attempted naming were cited Thursday by a Chinese government official as an example of bizarre names creeping into the Chinese language.
The father "said 'the whole world uses it to write e-mails and translated into Chinese it means 'love him,'"' Li Yuming, the vice director of the State Language Commission, said at a news conference.
The symbol pronounced in English as 'at' sounds like the Chinese phrase "love him."
Written Chinese does not use an alphabet but is comprised of characters, sometimes making it difficult to develop new words for new or foreign things and ideas.
In their quest for a different name, Li said that the parents of baby '@' were not alone. As of last year, only 129 surnames accounted for 87 percent of all surnames in China, Li said, suggesting that the uniformity drove people to find more individual given names.
"There was even a 'Zhao-A,' a 'King Osrina' and other extremely individualistic names," Li said, according to a transcript of the news conference posted on the government's main web site, http://www.gov.cn .
Li did not say whether police, who are the arbiters of names because they issue identity cards, rejected baby '@' and the others. But nationwide last year there were 60 million people's names that used "unfamiliar characters," Li said.
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese couple tried to name their baby "@," claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child, an official trying to whip the national language into line said Thursday.
The unusual name stands out especially in Chinese, which has no alphabet and instead uses tens of thousands of multi-stroke characters to represent words.
"The whole world uses it to write e-mail, and translated into Chinese it means 'love him'," the father explained, according to the deputy chief of the State Language Commission Li Yuming.
While "@" is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word "at" to sound it out -- which with a drawn out "T" sounds something like "ai ta," or "love him," to Mandarin speakers.
Li told a news conference on the state of the language that the name was an extreme example of people's increasingly adventurous approach to Chinese, as commercialization and the Internet break down conventions.
Another couple tried to give their child a name that rendered into English sounds like "King Osrina."
Li did not say if officials accepted the "@" name. But earlier this year the government announced a ban on names using Arabic numerals, foreign languages and symbols that do not belong to Chinese minority languages.
Sixty million Chinese faced the problem that their names use ancient characters so obscure that computers cannot recognize them and even fluent speakers were left scratching their heads, said Li, according to a transcript of the briefing on the government Web site (www.gov.cn).
One of them was the former Premier Zhu Rongji, whose name had a rare "rong" character that gave newspaper editors headaches.
Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Originally posted by: OSx86
I'm going to name my kid %
and his sister ~
Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Originally posted by: OSx86
I'm going to name my kid %
and his sister ~
Originally posted by: OSx86
If I have twins they will be named ( and )
Originally posted by: kstu
Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Originally posted by: OSx86
I'm going to name my kid %
and his sister ~
Tilde is actually a pretty decent name... kind of.
Tilda isn't too bad of a name.Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Originally posted by: OSx86
I'm going to name my kid %
and his sister ~
Originally posted by: OSx86
I'm going to name my kid %
Originally posted by: Howard
Tilda isn't too bad of a name.
Originally posted by: hypn0tik
<Obligatory>
Eight equals equals equals D tilde
</Obligatory>
Originally posted by: Quasmo
I'm my kid !%&$ people will think he is angry all the time.