Chinese names must mesh with database

BEIJING, March 17 (UPI) -- China's Ministry of Public Security has a new regulation on registration of names -- requiring babies' names be drawn from a government list.

With the introduction of electronic identity cards, authorities will only register names that can be stored in their police database, which excludes names spelled with rare Chinese characters, The Times of London reported.

In the past, names were handwritten on cards, so there were no limitations. The 18th century Kangxi Dictionary, the authoritative work for the Chinese language, contains 50,000 words -- almost twice as many as a computer database.

About 60 million of China's 1.3 billion people have names containing at least one rare character, making it difficult to open a bank account or buy a plane ticket.

During the Cultural Revolution, many children were given such names as "Leap Forward" or "Safeguard the Red."

Today's parents often choose words denoting "wisdom" or "brightness" for a son or "serenity" and "beauty" for a daughter.