However, Wang Haohua, Director of the China Name Culture Research Society, warned that although most name experts choose names based on traditional Chinese culture and I Ching, or Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese divination manual and book of wisdom, their business needs regulating. He suggests that people still need to focus more on the meanings, form and sound when choosing names.

Reflecting history

Another interesting phenomenon of Chinese names is that they often relate to a period of history, especially in the past six decades. For example, if a man was born in 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded, his name is very possible to be jianguo, which means, founding a country, or jiefang, which means liberation.

And if a person was born in 1950, when China sent troops to Korea to help the country fight against the Americans, his name might be yuanchao meaning, helping Korea. The downside of this trend is that many people end up sharing the same given and family name, creating much confusion.

In the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), most names would include the characters hong, meaning red and implying revolution, or the character jun, meaning army, showing the love and respect of people to the army at that time.

After the Cultural Revolution, names are usually two characters--one is the surname and the other is the given name, such as Zhang Ping, Li Gang and Wang Li. The character ping, means peace and stability, and is one of the most popular given names during that period. According to Du Peng, professor at the Population Development Studies Center, Renmin University of China, this reflects the hope people had for a simple, stable life after the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution.

With time, these historical references have lost popularity, with many parents now favoring names from ancient literary or poetic works, hoping their children will be as elegant and knowledgeable as their names.

One name too many

With its massive population and comparatively limited name pool, many Chinese share the same name, something that has become a social problem and caused varying degrees of inconvenience in people's life and work.

According to a survey carried out in Shenyang, capital city of Liaoning Province, there are 4,049 people called Liu Yang in the city. Among people surnamed Zhang, Wang, Li and Liu, the four most found surnames in China, 12,828 have the same character wei in their given names. In addition, females whose given name is shufen, meaning virtuous and ladylike, number 7,000. This is patently a hotbed for confusion.

In a desperate attempt to ensure their child is unique in the name department, many parents now create new characters themselves or use ancient characters rarely known to people in names of their children.

Adding to the complication is the fact that these complex name permutations cannot be typed out on a computer, which hinders the registration of newly born babies.

In an attempt to reform the current naming process, the Ministry of Public Security has worked out a draft regulation on name registration and management. According to the draft plan, a baby can use a combination of the surnames of its father and mother, as his/her surname, to allow more naming options. It is hoped that in the future this will reduce the restriction of parents being bound by the use of similar names.