In honour of world’s No. 1 mobile game, Shaanxi parents name their daughter 'Honour of Kings'

A baby girl born last month in Shaanxi province has been named Honour of Kings by her parents, identifying her with the same four Chinese characters used by the world’s most popular mobile fantasy role-playing game, according to a report by ThePaper.cn.

The report displayed what appeared to be an identity registration, with the date of birth, address and other information redacted, but showing the name and gender. The August 7th document carried what looked like the seal of the Sanqiao bureau of the Xi’an police department.

An official at the public security bureau of Shaanxi’s provincial capital Xi’an said the police are powerless to intervene, and will issue the relevant documentation and birth certificate if parents are willing to give their baby that name, the website reported, without identifying the official.

The game, developed in 2015 by Tencent Holdings, claims to have been downloaded 200 million times, with 80 million people -- equal to the population of Germany -- playing actively everyday.

Based on Chinese historical characters, the game’s popularity drew scathing criticism from Communist Party’s mouthpiece newspaper People’s Daily, which published two pieces of commentary in July that described it as “poison” and “drug”.

The criticism caused Tencent’s shares to tumble in Hong Kong, wiping US$17.5 billion off the company’s market value in a day, forcing the game developer to impose a one-hour daily time limit for players under the age of 12, and two hours for players age 12 to 18.

Still, Honour and other games by Tencent propelled the company’s second-quarter sales to a 59 per cent growth to 56.6 billion yuan (US$8.45 billion) for the three months ended June. Revenue from mobile games alone was 14.8 billion yuan, 54 per cent more than the same quarter last year.