History of education
Although there are more than 40,000 Chinese characters in written Chinese, many are rarely used. Studies have shown that full literacy in the Chinese language requires a knowledge of only between three and four thousand characters.
Naming laws in the People's Republic of China
Latin characters, numerals and other non-Chinese symbols are prohibited, as they do not constitute part of a Chinese name under government law. Only Chinese characters are permitted; however, characters which are unable to be input on computers are also disallowed. There are no limits on the number of characters used, as this may vary depending on the name (typical Chinese names on average constitute 2 to 3 characters, with 4 or more characters being rare; however, non-Han ethnic groups such as Mongols, Tibetans and Uighurs have many syllables after transliteration into Standard Chinese).