"Yan Song" is the name Song Binbin adopted while living in the U.S. At the height of her celebrity in China as a Red Guard she also used Song Yaowu ("Be violent"), the given name given her by Mao Zedong. In Morning Sun Song claimed Yan ("stone," "rock") was selected randomly for her by her friends so that she could escape the ignominy of Yaowu. As noted on this site previously there is a symmetry between Yan and Song's course of study in the U.S. at M.I.T.: geology.
If given her by friends, they evidently had not consulted Chinese history beforehand. The astounding entry below on another Yan Song is excerpted from Wikipedia.
Biography
Yan Song was the prime minister who had served under the emperor Jia Jing... Under Yan Song, the nation fell into an era of moral decadence and corruption, where righteous officers were sidelined and the Ming national strength fell rapidly. Yan Song's wealth is said to be so rich that it is said to be comparable to that of the emperor. He is also well known for his corruption and had been known to openly sell government positions for cash during the Jia Qing reign. However, his corruption and treachery had also incurred the indignation of righteous officers and created many political opponents. Yan Song was finally disgraced in his later years and died in poverty not long after that, while his son, the infamous Yan Shifan, was executed for collaborating with Japanese pirates who invaded Chinese coastal provinces at the time.
He was the subject of the Chinese opera called Beating Yan Song (打嚴嵩 Dǎ Yán Sōng).
