The Battle Rages On

(Or, The Continuing Competition For Silliest Name In The Land)

Now that the Beijing Olympics are thankfully relegated to the history books and the painful memories associated with those weeks of fierce competition have been neatly filed away in the far recesses of your mind, allow me to drag it all back for just one moment. I will not stand idly by and let complacency get the best of you. Why? Because the Chinese never rest.

Despite winning all those golds, they are too proud to admit that losing the total medal count to the USA will forever be a splinter in their big stinky paw. Just as the US government would rightly have you believe, the treacherous Chinese are currently continuing efforts to plot their glorious uprising to take over the world and crush democracy with poorly chosen monikers. You saw what they did at the Opening Ceremony; now imagine all that manpower armed with bad names instead of drumsticks. I pray for my unborn children.

During this sensitive time, it is vital to educate yourself and know all you can about this threat. It's time to enter the mind of the Yellow Peril. Thus I submit to you, the 2008 name audit. By studying their names, you can learn all you need to know about them.

First, we have the clever ones who have chosen the names of America's own, a diabolical tactic to appropriate our cherished heroes. We've got some television stars (Scofield, Locke, Simpson), some film icons (Bourne, Rocky (and his Viagra-loving pal, Rocky Dong - ha!), Neo) and actual real-life heroes (Kobe). American institutions aren't even safe (Yahoo, Google, Disney, Navy).

Names Stolen From Your Beloved Bald TV Stars

They also get mythical, pillaging not only Roman and Norse legends, but also Tolkien: Triton, Thor, Elven

Dipping into the eternal battle between good and evil, we come upon some Judeo-Christian imagery (you will note that now we have TWO fallen angels at the company...):
Sunday and Moses vs. Lucifre and Daemon

Next, the ones that fly under the radar with names of seemingly innocuous random objects:
String, Bottle, Wine, Stone, Coin, Jet, Orange, Jar, Shoulder, Blazer, Jam, Echo, Cherry

Digging deeper, we find the ones who lure you with the sweet stuff, like strangers in a big white van:
Sugar, Candy, Cookie, Vanilla, Cheer, Dreamy (a dude), Smile, Magic, Semon (we've got TWO, but the winner is surnamed Wang...)

Moving on, we come to the nature lovers:
Cloud(y), Leaf, Snow, Ocean, Alps, Fjord, and the sickeningly saccharine, Summer Sun

Close behind, we have everyone's favorite - the people that insist on naming themselves after animals. This never gets old: Lion, Tiger, Pony, Phoenix, Fish, Fly

Delving into more mundane subject matter, we've got some adjectives (Real, Ready, Brisk), verbs (Freed, Tear), a gerund (Wondering) and two creative adverbs (Gayly, Radly). Most curiously, one wonders if "Gayly" is merely happy or fancies a nice buggering every now and again...

Speaking of buggering, consider these lovely gems:
Blondie Poon, Lolita, Titi, Action, Dicky Huang

As we come to the end of the audit, I present those villians who deserved special recognition with their very own categories:

The Return of Scooby Doo Award: Rorry
Bodega Beauty Award: Yolanda
Son Of Pika Award: Kaka Chu (but is he advocating the futbol player or poop?)
Inexplicable Choice Award: John Son (that is his first name...no relation at all to his Chinese characters)

And finally, we end with the most dangerous of the bunch, the ones who defy categorization and logic, though not to be confused with the ones using pirated versions of Microsoft Office with broken spellcheck (Jewerl, Sily, Rechal, Belive, Kidy, Likeit). Clearly, these names must be some sort of secret code used to communicate confidential Communist messages. To dismiss them as gibberish would be foolish. Never underestimate the enemy, especially an adversary with such creative nomenclature as this:

Tant, Smoll, Grissom, Soff, Turble, Phoonsure, Kubbc, Robbiet, Vosing, Hutter, Hinate, Ficom, Jeery, Clize, Linkevinse, Sunbow, Hud Woo, Jackiet, Risehong, Vigoss, QQ Ding, Zakbo, Jocose, Chitty, Madoka, Kama, Elliv, Conrite, Aquila, Cret, Feinny, Jarry, Yearnwade, Panny, Shaha, Crice, Sinba, Givty, Newjie, Kelpy, KingSea, Rabe, Famy

Luckily, there is hope. A mole has infiltrated their ranks, and in a bit of cross-straits confusion, one of China's own - Xu Hai - has changed his English name to "Hayes Hsu," clearly using the Taiwanese Romanization conventions for his surname. This brave soul has some hard espionage duties ahead, most dauntingly, against the leader of this Chinese Bad Name force, the most fearsome of all, the man so bold in his national pride that he named himself after the motherland:

China Wang

I can't make this stuff up, people. As a vigilant patriot, I implore you: do not let the Chinese win this battle. Do your part to help Uncle Sam. Pick an equally ridiculous Chinese name for yourself, like Courageous Dragon, Big Mountain or Friendly Barbarian. You could even get some random Chinese characters tattooed on that strapping red neck of yours. Please don't underestimate what they can do, for as you have seen, with every passing year, these mind-boggling names just keep coming. Until 2009...