IF you are looking for a Li Danan at the Yao tribe village in China you will have to sieve through one quarter of the villagers to find the right person.

A total of 106 females, aged between 16 and 82, in the village share the same name Danan, which means eldest daughter.

Almost every home has a Danan and having three Danans in one family is fairly common in the remote village of the minority tribe, the majority of whom have the surname Li.

Li Liu's family has four members by that name. They are his 82-year-old grandmother, 42-year-old wife, 24-year-old daughter and 19-year-old daughter-in-law.

This was discovered during a census conducted at the village of 453 people in Yunnan province, China, recently.

Besides Li Danan, the village also has three people with the same name as Cantopop star Jackie Cheung Hok-Yau and eight bearing the name Zhang Bo Zhi (named after Cecelia Cheung Pak-Chi).

Reporters from China's Chun Cheng Wan Bao had entered the mountain village with the civil police after a six-hour journey by car.

They were there to distribute identity documents to the villagers.

Village head Li Jin Hua said none of them has any identity documents or marriage certificates because they seldom leave the village.

"We do not have a name until we get married," he added.

After a couple get married, they would just be named according to their sequence among their siblings. The eldest son Lauda, followed by Lauer and Lausan while the eldest daughter would be called Danan.

Meng Wang police station chief Luo Zhengming said family planning could not be carried out at the village because they are not registered with the authorities.

He said the villagers have realised the importance of identity documents now.

Due to the name confusion, the Registration Department had requested the villagers to get new names for themselves.

-The Daily Chilli