The name Wei, or “Mighty”, is so popular that parents have been turning to ancient and esoteric dictionaries to find more unusual monikers for their children.

Not anymore. The Ministry of Public Security has drawn up new rules and babies’ names must in future be drawn from a database that excludes thousands of rare Chinese characters. Out go indecipherable names. With the introduction of electronic identity cards, the authorities will register only names that they decide to include on their database.

Bao Suixian, a deputy director at the ministry, said: “We cannot handwrite rare characters on the cards like we did before.” About 60 million of China’s 1.3 billion people have at least one rare character in their name, making it difficult for them to open a bank account or to buy an aircraft ticket.

The fashion for unusual names is understandable in a society emerging from decades of revolutionary fervour when many children were called “Leap Forward”, “Cultural Revolution”, “Safeguard the Red” or — possibly the most popular — “Found the Nation”.

Most Chinese have three names. The surname comes first, followed by a personal name usually composed of two characters. But the current vogue is for a single name; hence the flood of boys known simply as “Mighty”.

In Beijing alone, more than 3,000 men are called Li Wei — or Li Mighty — and another 3,000 share the name Li Jie — or Li Distinguished. The situation is no better for girls. More than 4,300 are called Wang Jade Orchid.

Modern parents often choose words indicating “wisdom” or “brightness” for a son and, for girls, feminine words denoting “serenity” and “beauty” are very fashionable. The naming of a child is no small matter and consulting a fortune teller has become almost essential to ensure that the new citizen goes though life with the most auspicious of names.

Zhang Naiqian, or Zhang Hold Up High, a Beijing fortune teller and name specialist, said that many details of a baby’s birth — for example, the time and the weather — must be taken into consideration when selecting a name.

Before the new police database is introduced, Mr Zhang has an enormous range to choose from. Ancient poems are a popular source of inspiration and the 18th-century Kangxi Dictionary, the authoritative work for the Chinese language, contains 50,000 words.

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