
In Chinese history, some of the greatest emperors of the Tang, Song and Ming dynasties had names that were considered by numerologists to be highly inauspicious. On the other hand, not a few literary toilers have spent their lives in disappointment despite having strong, auspicious names. Fast forwarding to contemporary Taiwan, the fashion for people to change their names has become hot in recent years. Why precisely do they do so? What does it feel like to change your name? And what social phenomena are behind this trend?
Since the Ministry of the Interior greatly eased restrictions on changing one's name with the 2003 amendments to the "Name Act," the local trend for changing names has increased. Numerologists and name-change experts can often be seen holding forth on TV, and a flood of books have come out on changing one's name and with it one's luck. It is easy to find websites that help people to change their names, and many of them claim memberships of a million people.

Everybody's doing it
Yang Kuei-yin, who is responsible for statistics on name changes at the Taipei City Government's Civil Affairs Department, says that in the past three years the number of people changing their names has increased, with more than 15,000 cases every year. That's an increase of two- or three-fold on ten or 20 years ago. It's not just Taipei. Even in central and southern Taiwan, the popularity of changing names shows no sign of abating. In Taichung County's Waipu and Ta-an Townships, despite their small populations of 20-30,000, the residents are still fond of changing their names. Last year, on average one in every 105 residents applied to change their name, and there were plenty of cases of entire families changing their names. According to Taichung County Government statistics, in the past two years, in that county an average of more than 12,000 people per year have applied to change their names. It's a situation that is particularly prevalent in Yunlin County, where residents see nothing strange in it.
Tainan City's Western District Household Registration Bureau currently sees an average of 40-50 name-change applications a month. Bureau director Lin Juei-mao says that changing names is not rare, and there are even cases of people who change their names twice, are still not satisfied, and wish to change them again. But because the law limits people who change their names for personal reasons (such as a coarse-sounding name) to only two changes in their lifetime, some people who are determined to change their names again will even move to another city or county where someone has the same name as them. This allows them to change their name on the basis that two people bearing the same name may lead to confusion. After completing the name change, they then move back to their original home.
"When a person goes through several names it can get very confusing, and it's not only a nuisance for the person involved but also a headache for workers in the household registration office," says Lin.
In the past, the reason for changing names was usually simply that the name was coarse or inelegant, such as Tsai-tou ("vegetable head") or Shuei-niu ("buffalo"), or names implying that a girl child was unwanted. But as society progresses and the educational level of the population rises, cases of people changing inelegant names have been diminishing. More and more parents are taking care to consult a numerologist before their child is born, so as to select a clearly auspicious name.

Fortune telling on the Internet is inexpensive, fast, and confidential. It can serve as a release when you're down and is a great way to get advice, but don't expect too much in the way of accuracy.
Vulgar but forceful
Cartoonist Liu Hsing-chin, who is 72 this year, warns against thinking that a name has little significance just because it is only two or three Chinese characters long. Within a name is reflected a considerable cultural and social background that is worthy of further study. He recalls the early days after the end of Japanese rule in Taiwan, saying, "In those days agriculture was the primary industry of native Taiwanese, and educational levels were low. People knew a limited number of Chinese characters, and choosing a name that rolled off the tongue and also had meaning was a big challenge for many parents. For that reason they all named their children with randomly selected names. People also didn't care if names were good or bad. Ordinary people even thought that the less flashy and more modest a name, the more likely a child was to grow safely into adulthood without disease or accident."
The next thing is that in those days of boys being more valued than girls, girls' names were particularly inelegant. Daily cooking implements were often used for names, such as "Soy Sauce," "Vegetable Sack," and "Soy Milk." "In the eyes of people today, a name is something that has to be used for a lifetime, and this situation seems careless. But that was the way a lot of people were, and they were accustomed to it," says Liu.
This phenomenon of casually choosing names for boys and girls only started to improve in the years after Taiwan's return to Chinese rule when people's educational levels started to gradually rise. The next thing was the emergence of popular names that not only sounded good but had warm associations, or what was popularly known as "vegetable-market names." The level of similarity of these names was so high that if you called one out a hundred heads would turn.
With so many similar names, it was unavoidable that people start being moved to change them. Article 7 of the Name Act provides that a person may change their name if it is precisely the same as the name of another person working in the same organization, studying at the same school, or living in the same city or county, or a member of their immediate family. After the law was introduced this quickly became the second major reason for changing names.

Will changing your name really change your fortune? Psychologists contend that your name is an integral part of you. You need to first truly like your name. Be sure that you don't change your name just because somebody tells you to do so.
We've got a Wang Yung-ching
With careful analysis, some "market" names reflect their historical background. Examples include Tai-sheng (Taiwan-born), Ping-sheng (Pingtung-born), Chia-sheng (Chiayi-born), which were popular second-generation mainlander names, and frequently seen in those born in the 1ate 1950s. Furthermore, according to statistics from the 1950s to the 1980s, the most popular market names for girls included Shu-ling, Shu-fen, Mei-hua, Mei-ling, Su-chen, and Su-chuan, while boys' names included Chun-hsiung, Hsin-nan, and Chia-hao.
With the changing times, "market" names have seen new developments.
Investigating popular children's names through publicly released joint college entrance examination lists has become a popular subject for writers of soft news in the media. A few years back, Yi-chun topped the university charts, and if you factored in the surname then Chen Yi-chun claimed the largest number of people. But last year Ya-ting knocked Yi-chun from its pedestal after seven consecutive years at the top, with 290 to 258.
Male kids' market names are less apparent, with Tsung-han registering the highest number; last year there were 152 exam candidates with the name. Chun-chieh, Chia-hao and Chien-hung are also often seen, and there are even people who share the same names as wealthy Taiwanese such as Wang Yung-ching and Tsai Wan-lin.
If a school or college student has the exactly the same name as another student at the same institution, this really can be inconvenient. Call out the name "Yi-chun" at Ming Chuan University, and 88 people may reply. In one fourth-year class in the finance department there are actually three students named Yi-chun, two of them surnamed Chen and one surnamed Li. Because the two Chen Yi-chuns are of different heights, one being 170 centimeters tall and the other 160, their classmates distinguish them by calling them "Big Yi-chun" and "Little Yi-chun."

Changing one's is all the rage in Taiwan. Techniques for choosing a new name include ones based on the Yijing (I-Ching), the Chinese zodiac, and "luck enhancement methods."
The right to choose
Big Yi-chun is frank about the fact that she does not like her own name and wants to change it. But because her parents are opposed she has to put up with it. Her grandfather reckons that although Yi-chun is a popular name it's full of power and very suited to her personality. But the fact that so many people share the name definitely does create problems. Every time she's walking down the street and hears the name "Yi-chun" called out she has to turn her head to see if it is her.
The name Yi-chun is particularly prevalent at Tamkang University, where more than 40 female students share the name, as written with one combination of Chinese characters. What's more, 13 more are named "Yi-chun" with a different pair of characters, but the same pronunciation. However, Department of Mass Communication student Yeh Yi-chun says that although she's bumped into people with the same name as her, in 20 years it has never caused any problems, and she really likes her name.
Worthy of note is that the trend to change names is one in which many university students are involved. Young people emphasize having their own style, and are sensitive about "vegetable-market" names. They want names that are not only elegant but also special, such as names of characters in novels. Yang Hsiang-yu, a student at Ming Chuan University, says she changed her name all on her own, without asking anyone else. Yang says her original name was chosen casually by her father and was extremely inelegant. As soon as she found out she could change her name, she immersed herself in a pile of books, and spent two weeks researching the numerology of different names before finally finding herself satisfied. Although her new name is a little like a boy's name, it's very free and easy and elegant.

Fortune telling on the Internet is inexpensive, fast, and confidential. It can serve as a release when you're down and is a great way to get advice, but don't expect too much in the way of accuracy.
Reflected glory
What happens when you share the name of somebody famous? Dr. Huang Chun-hsiung at Hsinchu General Hospital has been a typical fan of TV puppet series since he was a kid. Coincidentally he has the same name and surname as his hero, the puppet master Huang Chun-hsiung. Born in 1967, Dr. Huang says that ever since he was old enough to know it, wherever he went there were always loads of people called "Chun-hsiung," and he couldn't help blaming his father for choosing such a common name. It was only when he realized that there were some outstanding Chun-hsiungs in many different lines of work, such as Huang Chun-hsiung, a superintendent of Mackay Memorial Hospital, and former Premier Chang Chun-hsiung-almost constituting a Chun-hsiung clique-that he began to feel more at ease. He says he has never thought of changing his name, and the idea is even less likely to occur to him now.

In these times of uncertainty, anything can be changed-where you work, your marital status, your network of friends, where you live, how you look, and even your sexual orientation. This name-changing trend reflects the uncertainty in people's hearts!
Change your fate!
Apart from changing names because they are inelegant or too popular, the latest trend is to change because business is not going well, or for health reasons, or because a marriage is going through a bad patch. The hope is that the new name will bring with it new luck. Some parents, because their children do not study hard or get bad grades, or spend all their time at Internet cafes, apply to the household registration authorities to change the child's name in the hope of turning him or her back on to the straight and narrow.
On the advice of an expert, a household of ten surnamed Tu in Tainan City all changed to new names together. Because so many of them were changing their names it attracted the attention of the neighbors. The Tus said the reason they had changed their names was because Mr. Tu's elder brother's business had not been going well. The brother's family of five had already changed their names last year but without any results. This time, Mr. Tu's family, his elder brother's family and his elder sister's family all changed their names at once. Their reasoning was that "relations are bound together, and everyone changing names together will bring even better results."
The Tus say, "We need to use our new names frequently for them to do any good," and Mr. Tu has asked friends and family to use them more often. As to whether it will bring good luck, he says it is still too early to tell, but believes that things will change for the better.

Strange names
Changing names at the directions of an expert can possibly result in the predicament of having a very rare name using characters that cannot be found in a dictionary. Huang Jung-ping, a technician at the Tucheng department of works, has had some real headaches because his name is so rare.
According to Huang, his original name was Huang Chi-chieh, and he had never thought there was anything wrong with it. But when he began his military service both his parents suddenly fell into ill health and saw many doctors to no avail. In the end they went to a numerologist for help, and were told that Huang Chi-chieh's and his younger brother's names were mutually antagonistic, so he and his brother changed their names. His brother changed his name to Huang Lin-hung and he changed his to Huang Jung-ping. The names don't look similar at all, but remarkably the sequence of the different types of brushstroke that make up the characters is identical in each of their names.
It might sound strange, but after Huang changed his name both his parents' health improved, and ever since he has continued to use his strange name whose characters can only be found in the 17th-century Kangxi Dictionary. Having a name that can't be entered into a computer because the characters are not in the standard character set has also caused him considerable headaches. His most vivid memory is of getting sick in the middle of the night and going to an emergency ward, where unfortunately the nurse on duty had never seen the two strange characters before and was unable to enter his name into the computer as he rolled on the floor in pain. In the end he had to plead with her to give him an injection for the pain and then discuss the name problem later.
Cases like that of Huang also regularly occur in mainland China. The PRC's National Language Committee is currently investigating "standards for Mandarin names." In future, names in mainland China will be restricted to a choice of 12,000 characters, in order to avoid people choosing particularly uncommon names. It is not only that rare characters are a social problem, they also create problems because they cannot be entered into computer files. In particular, with the dissemination of the information age and as contact between people becomes more frequent, added to the fact that names are vital in communications, strange names are the same as strange people, and lead people to look at them with fear.
Just relax
Changing one's name is a major undertaking. All the relevant paperwork and academic records, whether in Chinese or in foreign languages, have to be changed. For schoolchildren this is not too much of a problem, but for those who already have a career and family, it's a huge effort.
In memory of his father, who when he was alive often scolded him for being stupid of mind and behavior, Cheng Yueh-po of Tainan City, now in his eighties, changed his name to "Erh-tai," or "two stupids" without telling his wife and children. Ordinarily, people change their name because it is inelegant, but Cheng did it the other way around. And because he did it at the age of 77 a lot of documentation had to be changed with it. Household registration officials asked him to reconsider, but he persisted, and in the end the officials had to relent and allow him to change his name for "special reasons."
What he didn't think about was Mrs. Cheng, who was shocked when she found out about the name change and insisted that he change it back. Because he couldn't take his wife's incessant nagging, in the end old Mr. Cheng changed his name back, forcing him to mobilize the troops to change all the paperwork back again
Can changing your name really change your luck? Does a name really have so much influence on your fortune? Chiu Hsien-tieh, director of the Yancheng District household registration bureau in Kaohsiung City, says that since the Name Act was amended many people have been applying to change their names every day. According to his long observation, people changing their names all want to change their luck, hoping to turn things from bad to good. Very few people rely on changing their names alone to achieve a Pygmalion effect on their lives, but they do it to put their minds at ease.
Name expert Lin Ta-wei points out that this is a difficult issue to reach a conclusion on. Non-believers think that the study of names is unscientific, and is a manipulation of the mysterious with only psychological effects. But for believers who often have personally experienced it, a change of name is like a complete makeover, bringing with it the power of feeling reborn and leading to a deep belief in its effects. As for the majority of people who neither believe nor disbelieve, it is only when they encounter a misfortune they cannot resolve that they start to think anew about their relationship with their name.
Lin Ta-wei advises everyone thinking of changing their names, "A name is simply a tool for assisting you. If you can organize your inner thoughts to accommodate it, it is possible that the results of the new name will be many times more effective. But if you still carry on with the same thinking and same personality, it doesn't matter how good your new name is-it will be in vain!"