Nearly 3,500 Chinese named 'Olympics'

BEIJING -- The upcoming Beijing Olympics is more than just a point of pride for China -- it's such an important part of the national consciousness that nearly 3,500 children have been named for the event, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Most of the 3,491 people with the name "Aoyun," meaning Olympics, were born around the year 2000, as Beijing was bidding to host the 2008 Summer Games, the Beijing Daily reported, citing information from China's national identity card database.

Chinese have increasingly turned to unique names as a way to express a child's individuality. At least one couple wanted to call their child "1A," he said, while others use the e-mail address symbol @, which in Chinese is pronounced "Aita," meaning "love him."