CHINA has deemed the Five Friendlies unfriendly — so the five Olympic mascots had their English names changed yesterday.

No longer the Five Friendlies, they will be known simply as Fuwa.

Officials on the Beijing Olympic organising committee said the name was found to be too hard to pronounce and too easy to misunderstand. One spokesman said: “Fuwa reads more smoothly. And we hope it helps the Chinese people to understand the mascots better. If they read about the friendlies they might get confused.”

It has taken the organisers of the 2008 Beijing Olympics — China’s big coming-of-age party — nearly a year to realise that the English name for the mascots had sparked a backlash among Chinese. The five cuddly creatures have always been known as Fuwa, meaning blessed children, but there are entire websites devoted to them under the name “Five Friendlies” and many Chinese use the English “Friendlies” as screensavers.

But it seems the English name has triggered confusion.

Some people felt the name was misleading because it has two meanings in English: a friendly person or a game played for pleasure or practice.

Then the actual name “Friendlies” was found to be confusing because it is easily mistaken for “friendless” or for “friend lies”.

So the Chinese name Fuwa has been romanised and will stand as the new name. Fuwa is a term popular in southern China to describe children and links the character for “good fortune” with a popular and familiar southern term for baby. It derives from chubby, almost spherical, child dolls made of clay that come from southern Jiangsu province, and has now spread nationwide as the “one-child” policy further raises traditional Chinese adoration for children.

The five dolls represent four of China’s most popular animals — the fish, the panda, the Tibetan antelope and the swallow — as well as the Olympic flame. They are intended to symbolise China’s welcome to the children of the world for the Games.

The change will be expensive. Already the word “Friendlies” has disappeared from the official organising committee website, and all Olympic souvenirs and Olympic posters that carry the word will be replaced. Officials did not say how much the change would cost.

Many Chinese dislike the design of the mascots and thousands of comments pepper the internet making fun of the five dolls.

The name change could be a belated attempt to win over an unhappy public to the five Fuwa.

Even the designer, the artist Han Meilin, has made remarks that show he is less than delighted with the five dolls. He said that it was as if officials guided his pen and, while they may have a correct view of the world, their view of art was not necessarily correct.

The name change was swiftly greeted with a string of caustic comments online.

One said: “These five things are not only ugly, but now also have pinyin (romanisation) as their English name.”

Another wrote: “Does Chinese culture only mean pinyin? Is pinyin a language? Is it characters? It’s nothing but a form of phonetics. Will it help foreigners to understand? It will only help Chinese illiterates to understand!”

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