English Names in China

[Narusegawa]

Hey - as some of you might know it is common to adopt English names in China (PRC) for various reasons. What do you think about this? Is it wrong to take a new name for convenience / having a more 'cool' name? In Hong Kong it has gone even further with English names since it has been a British community.

This video shows some examples.

What are your thoughts? I personally think it's a bit weird to just pick a foreign name like that and go with it. I don't think Chinese names are particularly difficult to pronounce or remember anyway - so I personally don't find it more convenient either.

[Wunderbar]

It's because most Chinese names sound alike. People want something different.

[Narusegawa]

At 10/24/10 02:32 PM, ChrisLovejoy wrote: It's because most Chinese names sound alike. People want something different.

Well that is one reason I believe, Chinese given names are often similar.

At 10/24/10 02:34 PM, ChillAsIce wrote: With me being half-Chinese that's kinda interesting. Kinda weird but I guess it's getting more westernized over there, and Hong Kong having English names is obvious as it was a British colony as you said

Yeah but even in Hong Kong a lot of people who have Chinese names adopt English names - I find this pretty weird. They shouldn't have problems being unique then and I can't imagine that it's about people having trouble pronouncing their name.

[Cootie]

I don't think that it is wrong at all to change your name for convenience or just the sake of "coolness". If my name was hard to pronounce and many people had trouble pronouncing it I would probably get it changed. Especially when I got older and started doing business with people.

[Narusegawa]

At 10/24/10 02:37 PM, Cootie wrote: I don't think that it is wrong at all to change your name for convenience or just the sake of "coolness". If my name was hard to pronounce and many people had trouble pronouncing it I would probably get it changed. Especially when I got older and started doing business with people.

Well - just changing your name like that is not something that everyone could do. A name is closely connected to identity and I feel that if I were to change my name or adopt some other name old relatives could be offended by it in addition to that.

I found an interesting article by an American-Chinese about this, you can find it here.

[Cootie]

At 10/24/10 02:47 PM, Narusegawa wrote:

At 10/24/10 02:37 PM, Cootie wrote: I don't think that it is wrong at all to change your name for convenience or just the sake of "coolness". If my name was hard to pronounce and many people had trouble pronouncing it I would probably get it changed. Especially when I got older and started doing business with people.

Well - just changing your name like that is not something that everyone could do. A name is closely connected to identity and I feel that if I were to change my name or adopt some other name old relatives could be offended by it in addition to that.

I found an interesting article by an American-Chinese about this, you can find it here.

I have actually considered legally changing my middle name to Cootie since it is also my nickname at school. I really don't see that names are anything of value and my family wouldn't mind at all if I changed it. My name isn't connected to my identity, my thoughts are.

But to each his own.

[Sekhem]

most chinese people i know, even in the prc, have english names. it's not really to be cool as much as it is to more easily talk to foreigners. names like jingjing/yingying/xuanxuan etc are tiring and even the chinese themselves would rather go by a pet name.

i think a lot of that video is probably obsolete (it's 4 years old and a lot has changed) as the chinese themselves often ridicule poor english names on places such as the gog.cn bbs and english instruction is really improving there. i personally volunteered to teach english for a few weeks in qingdao last year and most of the younger students seemed a lot like american students and their english was nearly as good as their counterparts from the uk/u.s. at their age would be. that jew bitch in the video needs to get over herself and she is obviously only showing the older generations that would not have received adequate english instruction.

[ilovemuse]

:D :D :D
i want a lollipop

[GenocidalTendencies]

At 10/24/10 02:32 PM, ChrisLovejoy wrote: It's because most Chinese names sound alike. People want something different.

All you have to do is throw a pot down the stairs to name your kid in china!

[samwd1717]

I found out some funny way to get weird names

Find a language translator and...

put your name down and translate from english to langauge A

then copy the words of language A and translater to Language B

Do this again With langauge B and translater to C

Then translate to english

I translater to chinese, japanese then korean and got Loose powder in a warehouse Samuel for my name samuel wells-day

[ilovemuse]

At 11/20/10 10:27 PM, samwd1717 wrote: I found out some funny way to get weird names

Find a language translator and...

put your name down and translate from english to langauge A

then copy the words of language A and translater to Language B

Do this again With langauge B and translater to C

Then translate to english

I translater to chinese, japanese then korean and got Loose powder in a warehouse Samuel for my name samuel wells-day

interesting...
i ended up with
"you want a lollipop"
o.O
IT KNOWS ME TOO WELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!