InstagramSixteen-year-old entrepreneur Beau Jessup has made a small fortune helping Chinese parents give their babies Western names.
The A-Level student earned over £48,000 through her website Special Name, which has helped 220,000 Chinese parents choose the perfect baby name.
In China, people favour Western names for their children as they think them important to succeeding in study and business in the UK. Chinese tradition also dictates that a child’s name must reflect desirable personality traits.
As there isn’t open access to the Internet (and the multitude of British baby name online generators) in China, here’s where Beau and Special Name step in.
The website requires parents to select five personality attributes from a possible 12 that they wish for their child. The site is then able to generate both male and female names for the prospective little bundle of joy.
A number of possible names are sent to the parents’ family and friends – allowing everyone to weigh in on this highly individual process of naming a new human.
And all this for just 60p a pop, allowing parents all over China to have absolutely no imagination for a tiny price.
Beau JessupFair play to Beau, she founded the site after helping one of her father’s business associates name their child, BBC Newsbeat reports.
The young entrepreneur said: “I’m not really qualified or relevant enough in that baby’s life to be the person to give it a name.”
But after hearing some of the names Chinese children had been given, Beau decided to act, saying:
I once heard of someone called Gandalf and another called Cinderella.
Being exposed to luxury items and things like Harry Potter, Disney films and Lord of the Rings means they use those for reference.
The Cheltenham Ladies’ College student who has a GCSE in Mandarin added:
I wanted to do it just to see if an idea could turn into more than just simply an idea.
With a £1,500 loan from her father Beau has since turned a huge profit.
At least all that cash flow will help her pay off her tuition fees – if she even needs a university education with all that business nous!
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.