Li Peng's birth name

[zhwj]

This page reveals the stories behind the names of a bunch of notable party figures.

For Li Peng (李鹏), it says:

李鹏原名李远凡。皖南事变后，在随八路军办事处的一些人员去延安的路上，蒋南翔对李远凡说：“李远凡，一般人到延安都要改名，改的名字通常是两个字。”李远说：“我的名字是三个字，中间的‘远’字不要了，就叫‘李’吧。”蒋南翔说：“你这个‘凡’字一般人不熟悉，不认识。我给你改一个字叫大鹏鸟的‘鹏’，取其鹏程万里之意，将来长大了好为革命多做工作。你看怎么样？”从此，李远凡就改叫李鹏了。

I'm thinking that 凡 here stands for some less common character with the same pronunciation, since it's not particularly rare itself, and in "李远说：“我的名字是三个字，中间的‘远’字不要了，就叫‘李’吧", it looks like something's missing after both instances of 李.

Any idea which "fan" it's supposed to be?

[wushijiao]

Any idea which "fan" it's supposed to be?

Li Peng, eh? Maybe 烦 or 犯.

[gato]

I looked it up. Actually, his original name was 李远芃 (Li3 Yuan3peng2). Maybe the original GB table didn't this peng2, so people wrote it either as fan2 or the grass radical plus fan2.

http://www.cass.net.cn/zhuanti/y_party/yd/yd_k/yd_k_146.htm

李鹏

(Li Peng, 1928.10─)

中共中央政治局常委，全国人大常委会委员长。 原名李远（艹＋凡）。

芃

péng

(形声。从艸,凡声。本义:草茂密的样子) 同本义 [luxuriant]。如:芃芃(草木茂美的样子;健壮;健旺)

我行其野,芃芃其麦。——《诗·鄘风·载驰》

[zhwj]

Thanks, gato. That's a useful site. (Wikipedia, where I looked, didn't have his original name at all.)