Most 16-year-olds are getting ready for their A-Levels and learning how to drive, but Beau Jessup is no ordinary young woman. She is an entrepreneur who has earned nearly £50,000 from her baby naming website, SpecialName.cn.
The teenager, from Edge, Gloucestershire, was inspired to make the website after a family trip to China. Beau was asked to her parents’ friends’ baby, which sparked off the idea that she could make this into a business.
According to an interview with the Daily Mail, Beau said that she had “heard lots of examples where people had chosen culturally inappropriate English names they’d heard from films or read online.” These included names such as Gandalf and Cinderella.
“It made me realise there was an opportunity to help Chinese people get it right from the start,” Beau continued, after being told that a good English name for Chinese children is important for future endeavors such as university applications to foreign countries.
Beau’s website has helped named 235,391 children at the time this blog was published.
She has also incorporated Chinese cultural elements into her website, asking parents to select personality traits from a list of 12 (such as intelligence, sensitive and confident) to reflect their aspirations for their baby, which is a traditional process that Chinese parents undergo when choosing a Chinese name for newborns.
The site charges 60p for three name suggestions, and is accompanied with an explanation of the meanings and a famous person who has the same name. The whole process takes only minutes, and the names can be shared via We-Chat, China’s alternative to WhatsApp, to family and friends.
“There are babies being born every day and they all need a Special Name,” Beau said. “I like the idea of providing a service that enhances such a happy occasion.”
