介绍:
Heyang: A 16-year-old British teenager has made more 64 thousand US Dollars from a website she made to give Chinese babies English names. What is the business model?
Ryan: Oh My Lady Gaga, let me tell you all about it! Beau Jessup, a British A-level student from Gloucestershire, came up with the idea after a family visit to China. They were out for a meal with friends when she was asked to give an English name to a newborn baby. Her website which she has now is titled 'Special Name', in which she assigned personality traits to each English name. Users are charged 60 pence or one USD to use the five-minute service, to ask users to pick five of 12 personality traits which they hope their baby will display, before it presents a shortlist of three names. It also provides examples of famous people with the same name. So basically, you get the idea, this lady is helping people choose their names. Now, when I look at this, I think it’s ridiculous, (Heyang: Why is it ridiculous? There is a need.) You need not to be lazy people, I mean even like parents in the US, we use baby books, like I know my father picked my name because he wanted to get in touch with his roots. So Ryan is I believe Irish or could be Welsh, and then every male in our family, our middle name is William. You know William is always present in one of our names, either the middle or the first name. So I mean the thing is picking a name should be your thing that you share with your child, that special connection that you gave to them. Now Beau Jessup from Gloucestershire, England, and you know I just think it’s a little ridiculous, but at the same time, some parents in China have picked names like Rolex, oh…
Heyang: I had a classmate called Ferrari in the UK, and he’s from Hong Kong. For some reason, I thought it fitted him pretty well! I remembered one day the teacher announced that this person is late again, and terrible grades, Ferrari! And then the whole hall of people…filled with laughter.
Yuyang: I don’t know, some Chinese parents choose some funny and weird names. It’s not lazy, I think it’s just they don’t know the proper cultural meaning behind the name. They choose name like Willow and Stone, Candy or Love.
Ryan: But at the same time, why won’t you research, why would you just kind of carelessly say ‘Ok, Stone, cause I like stones, big stones are good, so let’s name it stone.”
Heyang: Oh Ryan, let me fill you in on this. Chinese parents don’t… I mean they pay a lot of attention, or the individual pays a lot of attention into the English name that they wanna hold (Ryan: apple, banana), and with Stone, probably because (Happiness) his Chinese name has got the name of “Stone” in it. And then I know a girl who’s English name is Pearl, it’s because her Chinese name is ‘ZhenZhu”.
Ryan: But I think actually Pearl is actually you’d see some people with that English name.
Heyang: But she wouldn’t know that connotation that attached to that English name if she’s from a different culture.
Ryan: Well I thought about these guys, you know it’s like how can I judge this without giving my two cents, and people judging me for the names that I would choose for my kids. And you know I thought of some names, and here’s for the males, and you ladies can totally criticize me ok? And our listeners. But I chose Conor, cause it’s like a very Welsh I think, around that area. Roran, I really like Roran. Kale, that’s a strong name. For ladies, if I had a daughter, I would name her Madeline, I think it’s a very beautiful name, or Dominique. So those are my two cents instead of some of the other names, you know like we have mentioned, like Happiness, Smile, Banana, Love.
Heyang: Woo, or Precious!
Yuyang: Woo, it offers me some inspiration as well. Maybe we should set up some Chinese naming website to help foreigners get Chinese names. So Ryan Price, do you want a Chinese name? I can find a much better name than “莱恩 普瑞斯”, if you give me ten yuan. (Heyang: Only for ten yuan? You should totally sign up!), no as the starting point of business.
Ryan: You know, she’s making a really good point here Yuyang, you have pointed out something I was thinking about when I was looking at this. (Is) you know there’s very creative ways that people have yet to find to make money. I mean this girl made 64000 US dollars which she will use to her college. Even then, she’ll be going to a really good college, cause that’s a lot of money to be paying for your education. But still, with something as so simple as giving a name in a…What was it? A five minute process or something like that? I think it’s very impressive and creative how people can find ways to make money nowadays. It’s my two cents here.
Yuyang: It’s quite inspirational you know, the girl just wanted to do it, just to see if an idea could turn into something more than just a simple idea, and to become more than just a small project. It’s a nice surprise it turns out.
Heyang: Yeah all of that can be done in a website and connecting people from two completely different continents. And actually it’s filling a demand that is very real for today’s Chinese people. Because for various reasons, people want that English name. But I’d say, my Chinese name (Ryan: Candy?) is Heyang, and I’m very proud of that.
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