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Well, dang, so you can’t name your kid @ in China all because the authorities there say that it doesn’t translate to anything. Last I checked, there is a translation of the word at in Chinese, or at least there’s some Chinese words that sound like at. Just sucks for the kid, or maybe he’s saved from a lifetime of ridicule. But it got me thinking, hey, I don’t quite like ‘At’ Wu, but what about naming my firstborn $? $ Wu… Or better yet, maybe his middle name could be 4, not ‘four’ but 4. $ 4 Wu. Short and sweet, I’m sure it’ll get over good at the DMW. Bling bling, out…
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A man in central China has been refused permission to name his son @ because it cannot be translated into Mandarin – as the law demands.

According to the Beijing Morning Post, the nomenclative dissident from Zhengzhou argued that the symbol is in common use on keyboards and therefore fair game. Mercifully for the infant in question, his dad does not live in the kind of fully-fledged democracy where parents can name their children after pretty well anything they want – including software upgrades.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/12/no_at_for_chinese/