What's in a 名字 (name)?

Next summer, the Olympic Games will be held in Beijing and China is understandably very proud and excited to be the host country. This sense of national pride is reflected in a news article I saw today which says that about 3500 Chinese kids have been given the Chinese name for Olympic - "Aoyun" which I think looks like this in simplified Chinese characters - 奥林匹克 (although I could be wrong).

Additionally, many Chinese have named their children after the Beijing Olympic Games mascots, known as the "Five Friendlies." These cute characters (and the corresponding number of people names after them) are: Bei Bei (880 people), Jing Jing (1,240), Huan Huan (1,063), Ying Ying (624) and Ni Ni (642). When the Five Friendlies names are combined, the phrase means "Beijing welcomes you!"

To the Chinese, names are very important and usually have some meaning associated with the person. Traditionally, certain surnames have been very common and it is estimated that about 87% of China's 1.3 billion population share just 129 surnames. That's why there are so many people named Li, Chen and Wang among other common names. Interestingly, there are about 5600 Yao Mings (姚明) in China due to the popularity of the NBA baskletball star. However, Chinese are increasingly trying to come up with unique first names (which come last when written or spoken) for their children in order to express more individuality.

On a more local note, I am one of 2 David Mosers at Lingnan University. In addition to myself, there happens to be another unrelated David Moser (also from the United States) who is an English tutor here at Lingnan this semester. This has been a source of confusion for both of us as students and faculty get us mixed up. I don't think its too likely that many Chinese people are going to start naming their babies after us though.