in the past nine months I’ve named
250,000 Chinese babies I named the first
162,000 for free to promote the site and
then I started charging 60p for the
service
I currently name around 850 babies a day
[Music]
in this on the 6th of September a local
newspaper came to interview me about the
site and to my surprise the BBC picked
up the story after that I just went
crazy within 48 hours a hundred and
eighty-seven news channels in 18
different countries had written a story
and they were all talking about special
name um
basically what’s all this Chinese baby
naming stuff about and that’s that in my
first week back at school I had just
done OK in my GCSEs my plan was to ease
my way into my a levels unnoticed I’m
quite shy so I like to stay under the
radar and I don’t really like we’re
looking photographs very often so that
idea of being viral and the whole
experience was very overwhelming
I’d only told a few of my closest
friends about creating the site and I
hadn’t told my school because I didn’t
think any won’t be very interested and
when I began getting bombarded with
messages from teenagers asking for
advice and adults asking for me to
employ them and some Russian man asking
for the rights of the franchise
it was slightly strange and one of the
strangest things was my friends saying
that a girl where where she lived had
been set a business studies homework on
me and I was fine with being in the
Gloucestershire Echo next to the apple
picking festival but I really didn’t
know how I felt about being a project um
one thing I did like was after the Times
article my friends are telling me how
their parents are having a go at them
for
sitting around all summer and Bo’s been
naming all these babies home and even
prompted a half Paula G for my mum and
dad for not joining the young enterprise
club which is like an entrepreneur
Society at my school um yeah so enough
about me and more about the site what’s
this baby naming stuff about and that’s
that I’ve been going to China with my
mom and my dad for about five years now
and that’s because my dad has business
in Nanjing this met in the holidays my
family were quite different my friends
would go to Cornwall and I would go to
the Great Wall and I wasn’t too happy
about that and then in Chengdu about two
years ago with my mom my dad when we
were visiting the pandas a business
colleague of my dad’s mrs. Wang asked me
to suggest English named her for your
daughter
I was surprised and obviously flattered
I didn’t want to give a bad
recommendation so I said oh can you
describe your daughter a little bit more
for me and she then said to me that her
daughter was pretty intelligent reserved
but the main thing that she stressed was
she wanted her daughter to be able to
surprise people with the things that she
could achieve and I gave it some thought
and I suggested the name Eliza
based on Eliza Doolittle from Pygmalion
luckily mrs. Wong was delighted and she
then in the rest of the holiday went on
to describe to me why Chinese babies
will one day need a Western name Chinese
babies are given a Chinese name which
contains around 2 or 3 Chinese
characters and this creates a unique
name with a carefully constructed
meaning and I mean this is great if
you’re Chinese but these names don’t
work outside of China we can’t read them
we can’t pronounce them and we can’t
remember them this means that also
there’s another little problem and that
Chinese characters can’t be used in
email addresses so if you don’t have a
Western name you can’t email purchase
online or basically function in the 21st
century so why don’t try knee
parents just give a child or western
name by themselves and this is because
in the internet on the internet in China
a lot of it is censored and the majority
of websites are restricted so even if
they were able to gain access to a
baby-naming site they’d have to be able
to read English and historically your
English teacher in China would give you
your English name or you’d pick one
yourself and this is where it gets funny
applications from goofily Rolex Wang and
Gandalf whoo yeah but while we’re
feeling superior and we’re laughing at
the Chinese I do think it is important
to remember that these poor translations
can be embarrassing either way so for
example this tough guy thought he was
getting a tattoo what said strengthen
powerful when really it says are we
also I’ve already I’ve realized that
we’re actually all quite similar and
that mum’s everywhere have one thing in
common and that’s that they want the
best for their child I thought that
rather than make a mistake and pick a
silly name they’d enjoy using a service
where they can pick an appropriate name
based on their own choice of
characteristics there’s sixteen million
babies born in China every year and now
they’re allowed two babies each I
so I think the best way to show you is
to just show you and let’s take a
special name so here’s the homepage
there’s two icons a boy and a girl and
but our cartoons where you can see how
bad your life will be without a special
name and first off there’s a
kindergartener who’s happy she has a
special name because it means that her
teacher can remember her name and she
can make friends easily
then as many who didn’t have a special
name she couldn’t go to university and
she now just has to sit at home while
Catherine and William graduate
then there’s a businessman who is
embarrassed because he doesn’t have a
special name he knows that his English
name has a bad meaning so he doesn’t
want to give a card over to a partner
okay so today I’m gonna pick a baby girl
um and then there’s 12 characteristics
I’m gonna pick five which I think best
represent how I want my baby to be when
she’s older today I think I’m gonna make
her intelligent confident I quite like
her to be honest
and I’d also quality to creative and we
don’t want it to be too much of an
overachiever so empathetic and then we
begin the naming process by clicking on
the green button and then it will start
to load as a specialist is beginning the
naming process then when the icon pops
up we know our names being chosen and
when I press the green button you put in
your ally PID which is the equivalent of
PayPal in China and I get sixty P you
get three names here are three names
Karen Ella and Julia each name is
displayed with a meaning and then with
that name you also get two examples of a
famous person with that same name for
example Karen Karen Carpenter the singer
and ella ella henderson X Factor
contestant below there’s I didn’t mean
that to be offensive there’s an orange
button and then if you click on this
button you can then share your three
suggestions with friends and family by
WeChat but I’ll get back to that and a
lot of people ask me how I have time to
name all these babies and much like
Google has time to find everything for
everyone all at once I use an algorithm
the techie people in the room will know
how simple a filter and school algorithm
is but the basic principle is that I
build a database of four thousand names
at five characteristics to each name
which I think best represent what that
name means the user then picks five
names five characteristics and then it
algorithm matches my five to their five
and three suggestions are given
why three this is the cool bit I’m I’m
17 I don’t know you I can’t name your
baby and so basically you get three
suggestions which I think best match how
you would like your child to be then you
share these three suggestions via we
chat with your friends and family and
then without the risk of a cultural
mistake you pick your special name
in short the parent picks their baby’s
name not me I just give three
suggestions so for example Ella is like
my grandfather Julia is like my little
sister brother likes Ella and then
obviously the husband I agree there with
his wife it’s a fun process and it
brings all friends and family together a
really happy time it takes three minutes
cost sixty P and yeah I just I thought I
thought it was a nice thing actually
sometimes it’s not about just making the
money it’s just a nice thing and ever
since the story about my website went
viral I’ve been given some amazing
opportunities one of which being able to
come here and talk to you today and I’ve
also tried to make sense of what
happened in that first week when I came
back to school and this is about as far
as I’ve got so I think in the diverse
world that we live in when every day
we’re prompted by the media to focus on
and fear the differences between
cultures we see war and terror and
sadness I think maybe the reason
newspapers in 18 different countries
reported this story was because actually
they’re all more the same than we are
different would rather laugh our
cultural differences than fear them we’d
rather celebrate success than read more
failure and the story invited people to
be optimistic for 24 hours if a British
child can make something from nothing
then maybe the future is not that bleak
the story also shared the human side of
China and a country often depicted as a
sinister global power while we
while we’re laughing at silly names
we’re also reminded that actually all
trying to fit in and get along
imagine the global impact that could be
made if next week the same newspapers
printed a story about how similar we all
are maybe then we could feel safe enough
to enjoy the differences I think that
would be special [Applause]