The Digital Era Takes Its Toll on Chinese Naming
From Now parents must use set menu to pick baby's name:

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.

A sad story. The rich Chinese written language is one of the world's great patrimonies. I cannot see this kind of thing happening in Free China, but maybe I'm wrong.

[link via Memoirs of a Catechumen]