 For example, the family of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is of Chinese descent, adopted the name Shinawatra ('does good routinely') in 1938.According to the current law, Person Name Act, BE 2505 (1962), to create a new Thai surname, it must be no longer than ten Thai letters, excluding vowel symbols and diacritics.The same law also forbids the creation of a surname which is a duplicate of any existing surnames, however there are some duplicates dating to the time before computer databases were available to prevent this.