Naming laws in China

Naming laws in the People's Republic of China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau) are based mainly on technical capability rather than the appropriateness of words[citation needed] (as opposed to naming laws in Japan, which restrict the kanji which can be used based on appropriate taste, as well as readability by all people).

[1] Latin characters, numerals and other non-Chinese symbols are prohibited, as they do not constitute part of a Chinese name under government law.

In 2017, the Chinese Communist Party enacted bans on a list of Muslim names it deemed "too extreme", or may have "connotations of holy war or of splittism (separatism)".

[3][4] Examples include "Islam", "Quran", "Mecca", "Jihad", "Imam", "Saddam", "Muhammad", "Hajj", and "Medina", among others.

[5][6] Legislation in 2017 made it illegal to give children names that the Chinese government deemed to "exaggerate religious fervor".

[7] Ma Cheng (Chinese: 马𩧢 (some browsers will be unable to display the second character , which is three 馬 horses placed horizontally), pinyin: Mǎ Chěng) is a woman from Beijing who, due to her obscure name, frequently encounters issues regarding name registration in places such as airports and police stations.

[8] Ma explained on BTV-7[9] that her parents were inspired by a trend where given names are made up of a tripled surname, as in Jin Xin 金鑫, Xiao Mo 小尛, Yu Xian 魚鱻 and Shi Lei 石磊, and so her grandfather found her name in the Zhonghua Zihai, the largest Chinese character dictionary.

[15][16] The local Public Security Bureau informed him that his name violated the rules, and that their computers were not equipped to handle non-standard characters.