‘For luck’: China company boss changes name on advice of fortune-tellers then forces staff to follow suit or risk their careers
- New names have sound same in Mandarin as old ones but use different characters, which fortune-tellers claim bring good luck
- After changing his, boss orders several staff to do the same, promising them it would bring them and firm ‘luckiness’
A superstitious boss in China who changed his name for good luck on the advice of fortune-tellers and forced his employees to do the same has trended on mainland social media.
Liu Min, chairman of Lvdiquan Group, a property developer in Shandong province, eastern China, changed his name on the advice of feng shui masters and geomancers, then ordered several mid-level managers with the firm to follow suit, news portal Red Star News reported.
The new names Liu and his employees took all shared the same pronunciation in Mandarin as their former ones but used different characters, which the fortune-tellers promised would bring good luck to the company.
Liu’s former given name, Min, meaning “people”, was changed to a different character, meaning “mountain”, but with the same pronunciation as before.
An employee of the company, who was not identified, said Liu demanded staff only use his new name, which he claimed had improved the company’s performance after being adopted.
“He said the master told him adding ‘mountain’ to his name hints he has found a backer. On various occasions, Liu said after adopting this new name, he had become stronger, and the company had grown better and better,” the employee said.
“At company activities or in our documents, if staffers use his old name rather than the new name, they would be reprimanded.”
After changing his name, Liu told several staff members to do the same claiming it would bring “luckiness”. Liu and the staff only used the new names during their work for the company and left their former names on their identity cards.
The company’s business registration information with the local commercial authority also shows Liu’s original name.
According to the report, at least five managers have changed their names on Liu’s instruction.
“Liu would invite the masters to look at the managers’ names to see if they were suitable for the company’s development. If not, the managers would be told to adopt a new one. If they agreed to change their names, they would be assigned to key tasks; if they refused, they would be marginalised,” the anonymous staffer said.
The Lvdiquan Group refused a formal interview request by Red Star News, the report said.
“The name-changing thing has never happened here,” said an employee who spoke to the news outlet.
Chinese families traditionally place great significance on choosing names for the next generation as many believe a name embodies expectations from the family and sends good wishes and luck to newborn infants.
Adult name changes for improved fortune are uncommon but do occur on the mainland.
While some people turn to ancient Chinese literature or dictionaries to look for ideal names, others pay fortune-tellers to decide on names using information about the child, such as the specific time of birth and the zodiac year in which it is born.
Earlier this month, a video of a woman from Shandong mobilising her family to spend three nights coming up with names for her soon-to-be-born twins trended on mainland social media.
