The Interior Ministry of Taiwan intervened Wednesday and urged people to think carefully before changing their names after an increase in registrations.
According to the country’s name law, people have the right to do this only three times, which means that, in theory, someone could end up stuck with the name.
According to the official Central News Agency (CNA) of Taiwan, almost 100 people have registered to change their name as part of a promotion by the restaurant chain Sushiro, which runs until the end of this Thursday.
On Monday, the chain announced that it would distribute sushi for free to anyone whose name included the characters 鮭 and 魚 – which the CNA said together means “salmon” in Chinese, a key ingredient in the delicacy.
That person, plus up to five guests, could get a free meal – as long as he proves the name change using an official identity document.
In a Facebook post, Sushiro said he would also offer lesser discounts to anyone who added just one of these Chinese characters to his name as part of the promotion, the CNA said.
The promotion sparked a wave of name changes at Taiwan’s home registry offices, according to the CNA.
The CNA reported that a man who changed his name on Wednesday told authorities that he planned to change him back as soon as he had taken advantage of the promotion.
Another registry office, according to the CNA, said it managed to dissuade another man from changing it completely, while a third said that another man pushed to change the official name to “salmon”, despite having changed his name before.