In a quest to control and standardize ever more aspects of their citizens' lives, the Chinese government is trying to limit the choices in names parents can give their children. Why? Because "being unique is not good" and "inconveniences everyone".

Cheng, which means galloping steeds, looks just like the character for horse, except that it is condensed and written three times in a row.

The character is so rare that once people see it, Miss Ma [Cheng] said, they tend to remember both her and her name. That is one reason she likes it so much.

That is also why the government wants her to change it.

For Ma Cheng and millions of others, Chinese parents' desire to give their children a spark of individuality is colliding head-on with the Chinese bureaucracy's desire for order. Seeking to modernize its vast database on China's 1.3 billion citizens, the government's Public Security Bureau has been replacing the handwritten identity card that every Chinese must carry with a computer-readable one, complete with color photos and embedded microchips. The new cards are harder to forge and can be scanned at places like airports where security is a priority.

The bureau's computers, however, are programmed to read only 32,252 of the roughly 55,000 Chinese characters, according to a 2006 government report. The result is that Miss Ma and at least some of the 60 million other Chinese with obscure characters in their names cannot get new cards -- unless they change their names to something more common.

Moreover, the situation is about to get worse or, in the government's view, better. Since at least 2003, China has been working on a standardized list of characters for people to use in everyday life, including when naming children.

...
Government officials suggest that names have gotten out of hand, with too many parents picking the most obscure characters they can find or even making up characters, like linguistic fashion accessories. But many Chinese couples take pride in searching the rich archives of classical Chinese to find a distinctive, pleasing name, partly to help their children stand out in a society with strikingly few surnames.

By some estimates, 100 surnames cover 85 percent of China's citizens. Laobaixing, or "old hundred names," is a colloquial term for the masses. By contrast, 70,000 surnames cover 90 percent of Americans.

Yeah, all that unique naming business has gotten out of hand. The government has decided that each citizen will be issued a number instead of a name. That way, you will not be inconveniencing anyone with your troublesome name.

Mebbe they could spend more time figuring out how to prevent builders from using substandard materials in schools or keep food and toy manufacturers from using toxins in their products and less time dictating.

Get an alphabet, hippies.

I'm going to China for 2 weeks in June.

Save up. You guys will be bailing me out.

your name's too troublesome to enter into the system so they'll prolly let you go after a light caning.