Parents get assistance in finding right names

A new service in Guangdong province helps parents avoid giving their children names that are too common.

By consulting a WeChat account maintained by the Guangdong Public Security Department, you can find out how many others have used a particular name.

According to the household registration department, hundreds of thousands of male Cantonese use the characters qiang, wei and hua in their given names, while hundreds of thousands of fem ales have used ying, xin and fang.