Over 20m Chinese have 'Guo', character for 'country,' in their names

BEIJING -- About 21.3 million people of China's registered population have the Chinese character "Guo," which means "country," in their names, according to a report issued Monday by the Ministry of Public Security.

Among them, about 17.7 million are male and 3.6 million female, showed the report, which was based on information of the country's 1.4 billion population.

The report said the character "Guo" appears in names because these people were born in 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded, or on Oct 1, the National Day. The character was also chosen as good wishes to the motherland.