Back in the 1970s they charged foreigners a fee for having a bank account, in effect imposing a negative interest rate.

The effect is not due merely to the length of a name or how foreign-sounding or unusual it is, but rather how easy it is to pronounce, " he said."

Chinese laws and regulations mean businesses are allowed to use foreign names (and their spellings in Chinese characters) as trademarks, but this has caused international problems in the past.