CHINA:WITH THE Olympics penetrating the national psyche ever deeper, "Aoyun" or "Olympic Games" has become a popular name for babies, threatening traditional favourites such as "Defend China" or "Celebrate the Nation", writes Clifford Coonanin Beijing.
According to a report in the Beijing Youth Daily, over 4,000 Chinese children have been named "Aoyun" with an eye to the Beijing games in two month's time.
Most of the children were born around the year 2000 when China was bidding for the games, but the trend began back in 1992, and hundreds more were given the moniker in 2001 when Beijing won the right to stage the games.
It is common in China to name children after major events in history, and there are lots of people called "Liberation", "Civilisation" or even "Space Travel" in the country.
The police-run centre for information on identity said 92 per cent of the 4,104 Chinese registered under the given name of "Aoyun" were boys.
Establishing your individuality can be difficult in a country of 1.3 billion, especially when you consider that nearly 90 per cent of the population shares the same 129 family names, so in recent years there has been more of a focus on unusual names for children.
Houston Rockets star Yao Ming is a popular choice, whilethe star hurdler Liu Xiang is also proving the preferred option of many.
Some couples wanted to use the e-mail address symbol @ which in Chinese is pronounced "Aita", meaning "love him/her". Thousands more have been named after the Beijing games mascots, the Fuwa, or Five Friendlies: Bei Bei, Jing Jing, Huan Huan, Ying Ying and Ni Ni. Put together, the phrase translates as "Beijing welcomes you".