Why do the Taiwanese have such strange characters for names?

Question

It seems like every time I look up a CJK ext. B character it invariably says:

台湾人名用字。

For example I just looked up the character:

zisea notes:

拼音peng2。台湾人名用字。

A few days ago I was looking up , which zisea again notes:

台湾人名用字

And before that, I was looking up , which again zisea says:

台湾人名用字。

These just don't seem like characters that people would use for naming names.

I'm just glad the other characters I came across: , and - weren't considered characters for names.

Why do the Taiwanese have such strange characters for names?

It is a dialect character, which doesn't exist in other area, I don't know who made it. — sfy, Jun 04 '18 at 09:09
https://www.charbase.com/22d53-unicode-cjk-unified-ideograph This seems to suggest it's Cantonese, a variant of what is usually written 抨 — Michaelyus, Jun 04 '18 at 22:11
@Michaelyus but who in their right mind would use 抨 in a name? — Mou某, Jun 05 '18 at 03:50
@user3306356 I actually think that zisea is wrong. 抨 and are [both] the Cantonese for "to drive out", equivalent to Mandarin 赶走 I suppose. — Michaelyus, Jun 05 '18 at 10:57

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 26 '18 at 11:35

3

TL;DR Because some "fortune tellers" would suggest these characters.

Lots of parents go ask fortune tellers for names before giving birth to their children. Now young people in these generation seldom do that, but some of their parents(the children's parents) still ask them to do that.

And sometimes, for example, fortune tellers would suggest that there should be some "火(fire)" in the baby's name because that child will be too tender.

Not every Taiwanese believes in this, but some really do.

answered Jul 26 '18 at 11:35

NoobTW

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Names need to have 五行, right? – Mou某 Jul 26 '18 at 11:37
There are lots of religion in Taiwan. Not every people believes names need to have 五行. But yes, 五行 played an important role in names, cultures, and even Chinese medicals. – NoobTW Jul 26 '18 at 11:42

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 26 '18 at 10:53

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From Taiwan.

I have never seen those characters and never in names either. My computer can't even show those characters properly.

answered Jun 26 '18 at 10:53

thyu

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Why do the Taiwanese have such strange characters for names?

2 Answers2