New computerized government-issued identity cards in China can only include 32,252 of the roughly 55,000 Chinese characters. Thus, 60 million Chinese need to change their names to include only recognized characters. This presents a problem for those who like their names or are used to their names.
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It is all very interesting. I have several Chinese friends, and it is interesting to note that most of them share their full names with many many people. It is no wonder that the Chinese want to express their individuality by taking a unique name if possible. But all the possibilities of characters (and the tones and spoken dialects) are what make it so challenging for Westerners to learn the language.
Article in this last Sunday’s paper says that the top 100 family names are shared by 85% of the population. In the USA, the top 70,000 names have to be included to reach similar percentage (90%).