Japan bans baby names like Pikachu and Kitty

(Photo: Getty Images) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Download a free worksheet! ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ The story Japan has changed the law to stop people naming their babies things like Pikachu and Kitty. New rules have come in on the pronunciation of ‘kanji’, the Chinese characters used as one of the three forms of Japanese writing. The change is designed to prevent unofficial pronunciations of the kanji characters. In recent times, these unusual interpretations of the characters have allowed people to call their children names which are seen as strange or silly by the authorities. News headlines Japan introduces rules to put outlandish baby names to bed The Guardian You can’t call your baby that… Japan limits the choice of baby names to stop “flashy” ones Euro Weekly Don’t do it: Japan takes aim at baby names like ‘Nike’ with new rules on kanji readings South China Morning Post Key words and phrases put something to bed deal with a problem successfully flashy describes something expensive or designed to attract attention take aim at something try to deal with an issue; criticise something. Next  Try The Listening Room to practise your listening skills with BBC news reports. Try our podcast The English We Speak to learn more idiomatic language.