People are changing their names to ‘salmon’ to get free sushi from a restaurant

An official in Taiwan has urged people stop changing their name to “salmon” in a bid to get free food from a sushi restaurant.

Some 150 people officially attempted to change their name to the pink fish in a trend that has been dubbed “salmon chaos” by local media.

The move came after a chain of sushi restaurants launched a two-day offer which entitled anyone who has the Chinese symbol for salmon - “gui yu” - on their ID card to have an all-you-can eat meal, with five friends.

In Taiwan, you can change your name up to five times. But officials were forced to step in after staff were overwhelmed with the number of people trying to do so.

“This kind of name change not only wastes time but causes unnecessary paperwork,” Chen Tsung-yen, the deputy interior minister told journalists, asking people to “cherish administrative resources”.

He added: “I hope everyone can be more rational about it,”

Some people did manage to secure the free offer after successfully changing their name.

“I just changed my name this morning to add the characters ‘Bao Cheng Gui Yu’ and we already ate more than Tw$7,000 (£176),” one student with the last name Ma told the new station TVBS, in Kaohsiung, the south of the country.

Translated, his new name means “Explosive Good Looking Salmon”.

And a woman with the last name Tung told SET TV: “I’ve changed my name to salmon and two of my friends also did.”

But she added: “We’ll just change our names back.”

A move that will no doubt irk the Interior Ministry even more.

Other new names cited in the reports translated as “Salmon Prince”, “Meteor Salmon King” and “Salmon Fried Rice.”