POTTER, Gandalf and Goofy probably aren’t top of most people’s baby name list.
But if English isn’t your first language, it could be all to easy to name your child after a film character without realising you’ve got it all wrong.
Which is why 19-year-old Beau Jessup – daughter of Loose Women star Lisa Maxwell – has made over £260k by setting up a website to help Chinese parents find a ‘culturally appropriate’ English name for their children.
Beau – who speaks fluent Mandarin – set up Special Name aged just 15 after realising many Chinese people wanted an English name for their kids but didn’t know where to start. She charges 60p a time to help.
Just four years later she has Chinese investors clamouring to buy her successful site, as well as stacks of baby pictures sent as thank yous by extremely grateful parents.
Speaking exclusively to Sun Online, she explains: “I’m currently in negotiation with two companies who hope to purchase the company.
“My mum and dad are proud of me and always believed in the idea, although no one anticipated the scale of the success.”
Name shame
Beau set the site up after realising there was a hole in the market.
She said: “Chinese families take great care to select their child’s Chinese name, and they are also either given English names by their English teacher at school or they choose their own name from movies or cartoons.
“They need an English name when they study abroad or when meeting foreigners because no one can pronounce or read their Chinese name.
“You also can’t use Chinese characters in an email address.”
Beau soon noticed parents were frequently choosing bizarre names without realising.
She says: “Apple, Tree and Mint are common.
“Then there are Crystal, Cuty and Sparkle – the problems really start when names are sourced from movies. I have heard of children named Potter, Gandalf and Goofy.”
Business no-brainer
Beau’s idea started when she visited China to see the pandas with her dad, Paul Jessup, while he was on a business trip.
Beau – who is using the profits to fund her degree in social anthropology – said: “While my dad was in meetings I was being looked after by his colleague Mrs Wang, who asked me to suggest an English name for her daughter.
“I was honoured and wanted to choose an appropriate name so I asked about her daughter’s personality.
“She said her daughter was kind and elegant.
“I suggested that ‘Eliza’ would be a suitable name inspired by Eliza Dolittle played by Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, and she was delighted.
“She didn’t want her daughter to have an inappropriate English name like Apple or Gandalf.
“It occurred to me that if Mrs Wang needed this service then maybe other parents would as well – there are 17.2m babies born in China each year.”
‘I’ve named 680k babies’
Beau – who now spends just three hours a week answering emails and updates the database once a month – borrowed £1,500 from her parents to set up the website, which allows parents to choose their child’s gender before selecting five character traits.
The website algorithm matches the information with three names, which the parents pay 60p to receive, and Beau has so far helped name 680k babies.
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Beau says: “Along with each name is its meaning and details of a notable person who shares it.
“I gave away the first 120,000 names for free, and the first baby name issued was a boy’s name, with the choices Jake, Edward and Noah.”
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/how-loose-womens-lisa-maxwells-daughter-19-has-made-over-260k-giving-english-names-to-680000-chinese-babies-so-they-dont-end-up-being-called-gandalf-and-goofy/
News Photo How Loose Women’s Lisa Maxwell’s daughter, 19, has made over £260k giving English names to 680,000 Chinese babies so they don’t end up being called Gandalf and Goofy
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