Hello, My Name is Olympics

I wanted to post on this topic for anyone that may have missed it from CNN Online.

While it is impossible to avoid numerous Olympic countdown clocks in any number of large cities across China, perhaps a better indicator of the importance of the event would be the increasing number of children being named "Olympics."

The Beijing Daily recently reported nearly 3500 children born since Beijing's winning bid to host the games were given the name AoYun, which translates into Olympics. The paper also reported that only six of them lived in the capital city. Aside from the fact that it is a bit scary that these type of statistics can be determined from China's national identity database, it is interesting to know.

While in the west, our names generally are not chosen based on their meaning (despite the baby names book industry), Chinese names almost always have a meaning. When selecting an English name, many of my students just translate their name literally, which leads to high frequency names such as Apple, Tomato, Ice or any number of others that we may not usually think of in the naming process. So, if a name needs meaning, what better meaning than a major source of national pride, the Olympic games?

The report also cited a number of children being named after the five Olympic Mascots: Bei Bei, Jing Jing, Huan Huan, Ying Ying and Ni Ni. The mascots are what I would call "distinctly Asian in style" and are different colored, trendy, Panda-like creatures. Stuffed renditions are on sale everywhere in the country. Their names collectively mean "Beijing welcomes you" (北京欢迎你).