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Comment by paradite | Hacker News Reader

These names usually come from Chinese mythology and Wuxia, which carries a sense of national/cultural pride:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mythology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia

Xuantie probably came from Xuxia, and is widely used in pop culture (games especially) for metals that have special mystical properties.

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武侠 (Wuxia) culture is big in Alibaba. Everyone has a 花名 (alias / nickname) in the company. In the early days, people just picked names from 金庸 (Jin Yong)'s novels. Jack Ma's 花名 is 风清扬, who is a great sword master in one of the novels. Source: I had a short stint there.

Picking 玄铁, which also comes from Jin Yong's novel, seems rather natural in that context.

Jin Yong's novels are very popular in Chinese speaking countries and regions. Most readers won't associate them with China. I don't think it has anything to do with national pride. Culture pride? I don't see much either.

Yes, I agree that it is the natural thing to do. Maybe building / reaffirming cultural identity through these names is what I was trying to convey.

By your logic a World of Warcraft reference is also nationalistic. Western engineers can make the most convoluted cultural references possible with no criticism but something as innocuous as naming a processor after a fictional metal attracts accusationa of nationalism.

I must apologize if I made you feel like it is a criticism. I think national/cultural pride is a pretty positive thing, at least in China.

Americans have their fair share of nationalistic names.

The original Xbox was codenamed Midway for obvious reasons. :^)

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