《参考消息》2006年3月20日第8版《中国人起名 生僻字禁用》
《泰晤士报》2006年3月18日报道：中国父母必须从固定菜单上给宝宝起名字
Now parents must use set menu to pick baby's name
By Jane Macartney
A JOKE in China goes that if you call out the name Wang Wei in the street at least one person is bound to respond. （1）The name Wei, or “Mighty”, is so popular that parents have been turning to ancient and esoteric dictionaries to find more unusual monikers for their children.
Not anymore. The Ministry of Public Security has drawn up new rules and babies’ names must in future be drawn from a database that excludes thousands of rare Chinese characters.
Bao Suixian, a deputy director at the ministry, said: “We cannot handwrite rare characters on the cards like we did before.” About 60 million of China’s 1.3 billion people have at least one rare character in their name, making it difficult for them to open a bank account or to buy an aircraft ticket.
（2）The fashion for unusual names is understandable in a society emerging from decades of revolutionary fervour when many children were called “Leap Forward”, “Cultural Revolution”, “Safeguard the Red” or — possibly the most popular — “Found the Nation”.
Most Chinese have three names. The surname comes first, followed by a personal name usually composed of two characters. （3）But the current vogue is for a single name; hence the flood of boys known simply as “Mighty”.
In Beijing alone, more than 3,000 men are called Li Wei — or Li Mighty — and another 3,000 share the name Li Jie — or Li Distinguished. （4）The situation is no better for girls. More than 4,300 are called Wang Jade Orchid.
Modern parents often choose words indicating “wisdom” or “brightness” for a son and, （5）for girls, feminine words denoting “serenity” and “beauty” are very fashionable. The naming of a child is no small matter and consulting a fortune teller has become almost essential to ensure that the new citizen goes though life with the most auspicious of names.
划线部分《参考消息》译文（全文）
〔英国《泰晤士报》3月18日报道〕题：中国父母必须从固定菜单上给宝宝取名字
中国有一个笑话说，如果你在大街上喊“王伟”，会至少有一个人答应。“伟”这个字太多了，有些父母不得不借助古老深奥的字典来给孩子找个与众不同的名字。现在他们却不能再这样做了。
中国公安部日前出台新规定，要求未来孩子的名字必须从一个固定字库中选择，字库中排除了许多罕见的汉字。在中国13亿人中，有大约6000万人的名字中至少有一个不常见的汉字，这让他们在开设银行账户和买飞机票时都遇到了麻烦。公安部一位负责人说：“我们不能再像以前那样在卡片上手写一些生僻的汉字。”
人们喜欢起一个标新立异的名字是可以理解的。因为在几十年高涨的革命热情的影响下，许多孩子的名字叫“跃进”、“文革”、“卫红”，还有一个更常用的名字“建国”。
大多数中国人的名字都是3个字。首先是姓，然后是两个字的名。但是，现在流行两个字的名字。所以叫“伟”的孩子才会如此之多。单在北京，就有3000多人叫“李伟”，还有3000人叫“李杰”。女孩重名的也很多，叫“王玉兰”的就有4300多个。
现在的父母在给男孩起名时常会挑一些代表“智慧”或“聪明”的字，而在给女孩起名时则用一些表示“文静”或“美丽”的字。找算命先生给孩子起个吉利名字的做法也越来越流行。