Anglicize Your Asian Name

Home , Chinese given name, Courtesy name

SUPPLEMENTARY READING FOR BP

TOPIC: Anglicize your Asian name

ARTICLE 1 HOW CHINESE PEOPLE MAKE WESTERN NAMES FOR THEMSELVES When English learners combine foreign language proficiency with traditional naming practices, the results can be unexpected. November 8, 1016

One of the quirkier aspects of Chinese popular culture today is the practice of choosing Western names, usually those common to English- speaking nations. Indeed, readers may even have enjoyed a laugh at the expense of a Chinese friend with an unusual name, such as Seven, Strong, or Cupid.

An obvious interpretation of naming practices claims that having a Western name makes it easier for a Chinese person to navigate cross- cultural interactions. This would explain why more and more people have adopted an English name since the late 1970s, when China began its policies of reform and opening up. While this assertion is true in part, it fails to explain why other globalizing countries do not partake as widely in such a phenomenon. Why do, say, the Japanese or Koreans not take English names?

An alternative explanation views the enthusiasm for English names as a manifestation of a more general admiration for the West. In many developing countries, the West is often highly regarded for its level of modernization and political power. As Western culture permeates the developing world, people see changing their names as a way to emulate or share in this success.

However, in my opinion, what both of these interpretations ignore is rich naming tradition. After all, when Chinese people take English names, they do not give up their birth names; the new name becomes merely an additional moniker. In fact, the adoption of a series of names and nicknames is a long-held custom in the country.

Until the mid-1900s in China, a person would normally inherit their would be given a ming, a personal name chosen by the parents. At the beginning of adulthood usually age 20 for men and age 15 for women the individual would be granted an alternative personal name, or a zi. In the Confucian society of ancient China, it was common courtesy to address people using their zi.

Apart from the three kinds of formal names, a self-chosen name known as a hao was also very popular. The zi of the famous Tang dynasty poet came from a tenet of folk wisdom, which dictated that those who had misbehaved in heaven were frequently exiled to the human realm and became people of great talent.

From the first half of the 20th century onward, as China began to modernize, the practice of taking zi and hao began to die out. Today, most Chinese have only xing and ming. Against this backdrop, the current trend toward taking English names can be viewed as a form of cultural resurgence a continuation of ancient tradition with a modern twist.

More accurately, English names today play the same role as hao did in traditional China. Both are self-chosen and aim to reveal an aspect of commonly hold several hao at the same time, each intended to shine a light on a different side of their characters or reflect a valuable experience from their lives.

In th conventions, so too are English names subject to certain rules. In colleagues in the workplace but almost never in a familial context or among best friends. As a form of address, English names imply a certain amount of distance between speakers. In this way, these adopted monikers allow people to embody different social identities, in the same way that xing, ming, and hao denoted social boundaries in former times.

The fact that certain English names sound off-key to native speakers can be explained by the interaction of local naming traditions with a foreign linguistic context. As Chinese names are composed of characters, and each character carries specific lexical connotations, the culture. This stands in contrast to Western names, which often prioritize other characteristics such as phonetic and syllabic combinations.

Unsurprisingly, non-native English speakers typically become familiar with the language before understanding Western naming culture. Dictionaries are easier to get hold of than naming records. No wonder, then, that some Chinese consider it perfectly acceptable to call oneself

In addition, most world religions canonize their saints, a practice that has led to the emergence of established names. However, in China, this phenomenon has not occurred to the same extent, and the process of

As a result, Chinese people are rarely enthused by the idea of sharing names with someone else. While Westerners may see it as a happy coincidence that a stranger at a bar has the same name as them, in China this is more likely to cause awkwardness. When the same principle is applied to finding a unique English name, it is no wonder that you get as many Cheeses as Charlies, or that your philosophy class might be filled with Paradoxes, Morals, and Virtues.

The irony is that proficient English speakers with a rich understanding of Western culture often choose the simplest, most common names. In doing so, they are usually demonstrating both sensitivity to a different set of cultural prompts and a desire to avoid the social awkwardness that arises from teaching non-Mandarin speakers how to pronounce their birth names. Chinese people who are able to assimilate into Western culture, therefore, deny themselves many aspects of their traditional naming culture as a courtesy to foreign acquaintances.

However, we must remain wary of judging English names as somehow inauthentic by virtue of being unusual. The prevalence of such names in it is easy to assume that this process is somehow imposed on China by Western societies, it is essential to remember that a key stage of globalization is the way it is localized by native cultures. Viewed from this perspective, unusual English names serve to reinforce the richness and flexibility of modern Chinese society.

BY: Wu Haiyun

SOURCE: Sixth Tone www.sixthtone.com/news/1521/how-chinese-people-make-western- names-for-themselves

ARTICLE 2 THE NAME S DU XIAO HUA, BUT CALL ME STEVE What's up with Chinese people having English names? April 27, 2009

Texas state Rep. Betty Brown suggested recently that Asian-Americans should change their names because they're too difficult to pronounce. During public testimony for a voter-ID bill, she asked political activist Ramey Ko (who happens to be my cousin) why Chinese people don't adopt names for "identification purposes" that would be "easier for Americans to deal with." I know I should denounce Brown's coded use of "American" and point out that Ramey and Ko are both easier to handle than, say, Zbigniew and Brzezinski. But, mainly, I'm struck by how dramatically Brown misjudged her audience. If she wants to peddle her renaming plan, she should do it in China.

When I moved to Shanghai about a year ago, I figured my name would finally seem "normal." No longer would it be the albatross of my childhood in Utah making me stand out among the Johns, Steves, and Jordans. But when I introduced myself, I was met with blank stares, double takes, and requests for my English name. People Chinese people often wondered whether I were being patronizing, like the fabled Frenchman who icily responds in English to an earnest American's attempts to get directions en français. My company almost didn't process my paperwork because I left the box for "English name" blank. "You don't have an English name?" the HR woman gasped. "You should really pick one." She then waited for me to do just that, as if I could make such an important existential decision on the spot; I told her I'd get back to her. People Chinese people had trouble recalling my name. One guy at work, a Shanghai-born VP, called me "Steve" for almost three months. At my workplace, which is 90 percent mainland Chinese, just about everyone I interacted with had an English name, usually selected or received in school. The names ran the gamut, from the standard (Jackie, Ivy) to the unusual (Sniper, King Kong), but what really struck me was how commonly people used them when addressing one another, even when the rest of the conversation was in Chinese.

To sort out how English names became necessities in China, I recently spent an afternoon with Laurie Duthie, a UCLA doctoral candidate in anthropology who's finishing up her dissertation in Shanghai. Duthie has studied Chinese white-collar workers since 1997 and traces the popularity of English names in China back to the influx of foreign investment following Deng Xiaoping's market reforms. With foreign

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/5/17 5 investment came foreigners, and many of Duthie's research participants told her that they got tired of outsiders butchering their Chinese names, so they adopted English ones. "If Betty Brown's your boss, or if your boss can't say Du Xiao Hua, I'd want to change my name, too," says Duthie.

Increasingly, these bosses are Chinese, yet the English names persist, in part because English tends to be the lingua franca for business technology, and even native Chinese often find it more efficient to type, write, or sign documents in English. Using English names also creates a more egalitarian atmosphere. Most forms of address in China reinforce pecking orders, such as "Third Uncle" and "Second Daughter" at home or "Old Wang" or "Little Hu" in the village square. Your given name customarily said in full, surname first is reserved for use by those with equal or higher social standing, and the default honorific for an elder or superior is "Teacher" no surprise in a country that reveres education. But an English name, other than separating those with and without such names, frees users from these cultural hierarchies.

Given the nationalism I've witnessed in China, I was a bit surprised at how readily Chinese adopted Western names. (Even my Americanized parents were uncomfortable with the idea of me changing my name. They said I could do as I wished when I turned 18, though always in a tone that suggested such an unfilial act would cause them to die of disappointment.) But Duthie's participants insisted that taking an English name isn't kowtowing, nor is it simply utilitarian. Rather, it's essential to being Chinese and achieving Chinese goals. Whereas in the past patriotism was expressed by self-sacrifice, it is now expressed through economic activity. So by working for, say, 3M, Chinese citizens are helping to build up China, and the English names they take on in the process are as patriotic as Cultural Revolution-era monikers like Ai Guo (Loves China) or Wei Dong (Mao's Protector).

Taking English names also fits with various traditional Chinese naming practices. In the past, children were given "milk names" when they were born, and then public names once they started school. Professionals and scholars used pseudonyms, or hao, that signified membership in an educated class. Confucius, born Kong Qiu, sometimes wrote under his zi, or courtesy name, Zhongni. Even now, Chinese sometimes take new names to mark the start of a new job, entry to graduate school, or a marriage, as my coworkers Alpha and Beta did. They subsequently named their son Gamma. (For the record, Alpha is the male.)

For now, English names remain limited to those living in urban areas or with access to education ask a migrant worker for his English name

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/5/17 6 and you'll get a quizzical look. But as China globalizes, more and more Chinese pass through checkpoints where they'll acquire English names. Since 2001, all primary schools have been required to teach English beginning in the third grade (for big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, lessons start in first grade), and parents regularly choose English names for their children. China now churns out approximately 20 million English speakers each year, and the estimated number of English learners in China is in the hundreds of millions. In fact, there are probably as many Chinese who can read this sentence as Americans.

In the United States, people tend to view names and identities as absolute things which explains why I agonized over deciding on an English name but in China, identities are more amorphous. My friend Sophie flits amongst her Chinese name, English name, MSN screen name, nicknames she uses with her friends, and diminutives that her parents call her. "They're all me," she says. "A name is just a dai hao." Dai hao, or code name, can also refer to a stock's ticker symbol.

I still haven't gotten around to choosing an English name. Maybe my being Chinese-American makes me feel like I already have enough identities, or maybe I've at last outgrown my childhood angst. The other day, I asked my friend Zhengyu, a fellow American in China who also doesn't have an English name, why he had never picked one. "At some point I just stopped caring about it," he said. "I like my name, and I think it would be odd to hear another name identified with me." I have to agree with him. After all these years, I've learned to treat my name like a big nose or a conspicuous birthmark not my favorite feature, but a part of me all the same.

BY: Huan Hsu

SOURCE: Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/04/the_names_d u_xiao_hua_but_call_me_steve.html

ARTICLE 3 HONG KONG LOVES WEIRD ENGLISH NAMES October 1, 2012

Devil. Whale. Chlorophyll, Violante, Treacle -- you name it, Hong Kong probably has someone who goes by it. The former British colony is obsessed with weird English names.

Unusual appellations have been found on people of all kinds. The secretary for justice is Rimsky Yuen and the previous secretary for food and health was York Chow. Among celebrities, there is a Fanny Sit, Moses Chan, and Dodo Cheng. Models? We have a Vibeke, Bambi, Dada, and Vonnie. But lawyers take the prize. There is a Magnum, John Baptist, Ludwig, Ignatius, Bunny and four -- yes, four -- Benedicts.

Odd names make for odder situations. Last July, police arrested a woman named Ice Wong with 460 grams of ice -- the drug, not frozen water. Months earlier, the law caught up with Devil Law when he was brought before a judge for drug possession and crashing his car into a bus. In 2010, a woman called Cash Leung was jailed for paying cabbies with fake cash.

There are so many examples that one blogger keeps a list titled "HKSAR Name of the Day." HKSAR Blog, which is in its third year running, has almost 2,000 entries in the list.

Linguistics experts say English names, including unusual ones that would not be found in Western English-speaking countries, are becoming more prevalent, though they cannot pinpoint when the trend began.

"There are no signs of abating," said David Li, a professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education's department of linguistics and modern language studies. "There are more and more exotic or unusual names if one cares to collect and document them."

The immigration department, the government body overseeing identification registration, does not compile statistics on categories of names, but a cursory inspection suggests the experts may be right. In 2005, the author of HKSAR Blog concluded that the names of 2.5 percent of 5,707 lawyers were unusual, uncommon, or unique. When I recently surveyed the current register of 7,367 lawyers myself, I found the proportion of names matching these descriptions had risen to 6 percent.

To unravel why Hong Kongers would choose to be called Whale or Uriah instead of John or Jane, we must explain why they use English names in the first place.

In Hong Kong, where English is an official language and international commerce is the bread and butter, adopting an English name often comes naturally. In the early 1980s, before the government started promoting Chinese as the language of instruction, 90 percent of secondary schools taught in English. Some Hong Kongers are given the names by their parents at birth or by their teachers at school. Some devise them themselves.

The practice goes back to colonial times. "There was a period when it seemed desirable or prestigious to have an English name," said Stephen Matthews, an associate professor of the linguistics department at the University of Hong Kong's school of humanities. "Businessmen would take on English names as a mark of sophistication or to show they did business with foreigners."

In school, it was easier for English-speaking teachers to remember students' English names than their Chinese ones, Matthews said. And, as Li notes in a 1997 paper, addressing students by their English names was one way to encourage their interest in the language.

Li writes that English first names served as a "lubricant" to speed up the process of getting acquainted. Chinese forms of address, which are either very formal or overly familiar, do not favor quick rapport-building between strangers.

"In North America or the U.K., people transition to the first-name basis quickly," he said. "We Chinese are not so willing to use given names, which are reserved for people who are really close, like family members."

Matthews estimates that 90 percent of the institution's female and 65 percent of its male students have English first names.

As for the unconventional names, he said they initially arose in part due to an "incomplete knowledge" of the English language. Hong Kongers might have not appreciated the connotation of the name Kinky, for example. Februar might have been a misspelling or the result of someone over-generalizing the use of the names of the months like April, May or June, or both.

Over time, however, people have stopped questioning whether such variations are real names and accepted them. "It started as an inadequate knowledge of English, but if you see an unusual name today, it's because [Hong Kongers] are taking charge of their own language, not because their language abilities are not good," Matthews said. "People feel they can do what they want with English. If you tell Decemb or Februar that theirs are not English names, they'll say, 'I don't care, it belongs to me.' In a way, they're asserting their Hong Kong identity... [The English language in Hong Kong] is no longer a symbol of British influence, but part of people's identity."

Li said the younger generation has found conventional names less and less attractive and wants to be unique. "I think most such names are driven by a desire to be different."

Hong Kongers tend to shop around for a unique name and sometimes take inspiration from sports brands or luxury labels, for example, Chanel and Rolex, he said.

HKSAR Blog's author said substitution, deletion and the insertion of single letters appeared to be common patterns, which "may indicate a level of 'creation' or 'creativity.'" First names with the -son suffix are common, too. Examples from the lawyers' list include Samuelson, Winson, Philson and Garson.

Many English names mimic the sound of Chinese given names. A solicitor called Tse Kar-son, for example, has Carson as his English name. Singer Lee Hak-kan's English name is Hacken. Another singer, Chan Yik-shun, is called Eason.

Fashion designer Amus Leung's story demonstrates the many forces at work when adopting an English alias. Leung reminded the teacher who named her of the biblical prophet Amos. The teacher cross-bred the name with amuse, which she thought matched Leung's personality and sounded more feminine. "I love my name English name," said Leung. "It is unique and easy to remember. So far I am the only Amus Leung in the world!"

Ho Wai-leuk, a journalist, got his name another way. "When I was a student, everyone kept saying my Chinese name really fast until it started sounding like 'hoh lok,'" he said referring to the Cantonese pronunciation for Coca-Cola, "so Cola stuck."

It's certainly different from picking a name out of a book. And that's the difference. As Leung's and Ho's stories show, when naming a Hong

Konger, a plethora of cultural and linguistic factors are at play. In countries where English is the mother tongue, parents usually choose their children's names from a limited list. As long as Hong Kongers keep getting their names the way they do, Titarians, Heinzes and Yildizes are going to continue dotting the phone book. It's probably for the best. Because when you live in a city where you can meet a Raimundo, Psyche or Schubert at any moment, life is more interesting.

BY: Joyce Man

SOURCE: The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/hong-kong- loves-weird-english-names/263103/

ARTICLE 4 WHY SOME CHINESE SPEAKERS ALSO USE WESTERN NAME Jet Li, or Li Lianjie? It's not uncommon for people from the Chinese- speaking world to have two different names - a Chinese and a Western one. While this serves a practical purpose, it also has social implications. August 1, 2016

You might have heard of movie star Jackie Chan, but you sure do not know he is addressed as Cheng Long in Chinese. As for martial artist Bruce Lee, his Chinese name is Li Xiaolong. Western names are widely used by Chinese-speaking people, in addition to their Chinese names, even though they are not used for official identification.

These names might be chosen by either teachers or parents, and sometimes even by one's own self. One might think that this is just the same as how people pick their nicknames.

But there's a major difference. Western names of Chinese speakers are not only used between close acquaintances, but also professionally and in formal occasions. Although the practice can be observed more in the Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong, it is not uncommon in Mandarin- speaking mainland China and Taiwan.

HK - Colonial factor

"One consequence of British colonization in Hong Kong is the need for an English name for all kinds of education-and work-related purposes," linguistic professor David C.S. Li from the Hong Kong Institute of Education told DW.

"English teachers, including Cantonese-speaking English teachers, often feel inconvenient if they had to switch to Chinese for the students' names during English class. This is the reason why students are expected to either adopt or to accept an assigned English name," the professor said.

"Many would encounter an English teacher who could not pronounce a Chinese name, let alone remembering it," said Stephen Matthews, professor at the University of Hong Kong, School of Humanities. "Some saint's names which are rare elsewhere, such as Ignatius and Theophilus, were assigned at Catholic schools at that time."

But this phenomenon was not only limited to language classes, as English was also used as the medium of instruction in most schools in Hong Kong during the colonial period.

Despite the government's efforts to encourage schools to switch to Cantonese - the mother-tongue of the majority of Hong Kong people - as the 1997 handover of the city back to China approached, many have still clung to English usage.

The colonial history plus the fact that the given Western names are often not registered in identity documents explain the unusual phenomenon of casually changing one's own names. "As teenage students grow up, many would feel unhappy about the English names they adopted/ assigned to them earlier, so changing their English names over time is quite common, much like fashion," Li explained.

Other Chinese speakers

Eric Chu and James Soong, two of the three 2016 presidential candidates in Taiwan, are known for their Western names. Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan does not have a British colonial history. "In Taiwan, I would say there is a history of cultural colonization by the US. Students there learn American English and those I have encountered generally adopt English names," Matthews said.

In mainland China, however, the use of Western names is less prevalent. "The absence of the British connection helps explain why their respective social context does not encourage the adoption of English names. One crucial consideration is the perceived threat to their respective Chinese identity," Li said.

But professor Li also noted that the phenomenon is becoming increasingly popular, especially among those who received education overseas. This is because many believe it would be easier for non- Chinese speakers to remember and pronounce Western names, rather than Chinese ones.

Nevertheless, the fact that these names are not only used for the convenience of non-Chinese speakers, but also among Chinese speakers themselves, might suggest that a Western name actually means a lot more.

'Borrowed identity'

By using Western names, Chinese speakers are actually borrowing the Western interpersonal communication system, which is different from the Chinese ones governed by Confucian paradigm, says Professor Li. "The traditional Chinese rituals and rules of social interaction do not favor the use of our given names with non-acquaintances. Our Chinese given names tend to be used only with 'intimate others,'" the professor said.

In a research paper published back in 1997, Li also explained that addressing a person with his/her Chinese given name, apart from showing intimate relations, also often signifies a downward communication - an address used by teachers to students, parents to children, senior colleagues to junior colleagues.

The use of Western names thus serves as a buffer, to avoid being too formal and too intimate, and to avoid the embarrassing situation of addressing someone mistakenly as in downward communication.

"This 'borrowed identity' turns out to be very useful when communicating with both new acquaintances and old acquaintances alike. It helps to speed up the process of getting acquainted - something that matters to a lot of people working in various professions, from business to public relations, from communications to international education. This is something that traditional Chinese practice does not encourage."

Choosing the names

As an old Chinese saying goes: "One does not fear if he/she has a bad fate; what one fears most is to have a bad name," Chinese speakers use different mechanisms in the process of choosing their Western names.

Some people choose Western names that resemble their original Chinese ones, either in terms of pronunciation or meaning. For example, if one's Chinese name has the syllable Kit, she might call herself Kitty. The same goes with Yan and Yandy, Wing and Winnie, Wai Man and Raymond, Chi and Gigi, Mak and Mark, Bo and Bobo etc.

It also happens that when there is special meaning in one's Chinese name, one would choose an English name with similar meaning. Examples include: Rainy, Sky, Money, Cloud, Ice and River.

Sometimes, in order to have unconventional names, Chinese speaking people get inspirations from famous brands. Professor Li has some experience, "I myself have come across many unconventional names among my students and colleagues, such as Lithium, Rolex and Volvo."

HKU professor Matthews also said, "A recent student was called Bvlgari, probably because she or her parents thought of the brand as a sign of taste and high class."

In an article published in 2012, Scott Kronick, president of Ogilvy Asia- Pacific Public Relations, wrote for the community blog the Beijinger about the Chinese names he encountered during the time he had lived in China. These names include: Billboard, Devil, Shooting, Psyche, Twelve, Chairs, Cookie, Mars, Pope and Pray.

"In some cases, it seems parents knew a word but did not know how to spell it, such as Februar. They also generalize the practice of using names of months from the popular April May, June and July, to include less usual months such as December and January," Matthews said.

Though Chinese speakers can be very creative with Western names, the more common first names are still very popular, such as John, Jack, Tim, Jane, Mary and Christine. It should also be noted that not only names from the US and the UK, but other European names or even Japanese names are also not unusual among Chinese speakers.

As adopting Western names became trendier and more common, Chinese websites that specialize in naming have emerged to cope with the needs of Chinese speakers. These websites do not only list out names popular in Western countries, they also provide meaning, origins, the corresponding horoscopes of the names, and most important of all, they provide potential foreign names that match with specific Chinese names.

BY: Cherie Chan

SOURCE: Deutsche Welle http://www.dw.com/en/why-some-chinese-speakers-also-use-western- names/a-18966907

ARTICLE 5 AFTER BEING JAMES, PETER, AND WILLIAM, I DECIDED TO STICK WITH MY CHINESE NAME February 14, 2017

During the recent Lunar New Year, Columbia University students with non-Western names found their name plates ripped off from dormitory doors at several residential halls. The vandalism, which especially targeted East Asian names, stressed out students already alarmed over to Asian student groups.

Some students responded by posting a video on Facebook explaining the meaning of their Chinese first names.

As the students explain, their parents ascribe a lot of meaning to their given names. 欣然

This reminds me of a constant debate: Should Chinese people adopt English first names when interacting with Westerners?

The benefits of doing so are obvious. Going by a conventional English name makes sier. But my experiences studying and working in English-speaking multicultural environments in the past few years have made me realize that sticking to your Chinese name is better if you want foreigners to know who you are and if you want to feel good about yourself.

Name games

I was William, then Peter, then James, and then William again until I decided to just go by Ping, the last character of my given name, when I

Like many Chinese millennials, the Western names I used in my adolescent years in Shanghai were chosen by my teachers, and used mostly in English classes. My kindergarten teacher named me after Prince William because I was one of the cutest boys in class (at least according to my mother

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/5/17 16 primary school, my English teacher designated me Peter a boring name used in many English textbooks in China, along with Linda without asking for my opinion.

Finally, in high school, I got the chance to choose my English name on my own. Unfortunately I was caught off guard when a teacher began to

seconds and said something I regretted immediately.

F heard snickers in the classroom.

The nice young lady seemed not to be a Tolkien fan she said Frodo sounded French and asked for an alternative.

My mind went blank. I began to think about the names of my favorite

Fine. Let me try James.

many encounters with foreigners during that period, I still recall an exchange student from Edinburgh, named Fiona, looking unconvinced

In college I switched back to William. That was my first English name, after all. I introduced myself as William more proudly this time to foreign students and tutors. I registered several social media accounts

During this time I felt two identities emerge. I was Ping in my daily social circle. But I was some other guy named William to my few foreign knew me as Ping would never know me as William and vice versa. That was when I started to doubt the need for an English name in the first place.

Just call me Ping

I dropped the name William after I moved to Hong Kong. That was in

Beijing used the name, and so did a Chinese-American internship

short for Zheping to both Chinese and Westerners.

According to Chinese culture, only my close friends should call me Ping. But allowing foreigners to call me that too has had its benefits. Because I was one of the few Chinese students using a Chinese first name in my classmates. My identity was unique, and consistent across social circles. That saved me from be

I still appreciate it, of course, when Western friends make a sincere effort despite the clumsy pronunciation to call me Zheping, after

Even better is when they express curiosity about the meaning of the write down 喆平. I tell them 喆平

My name like the names ripped down from the dorm doors at Columbia University is a reflection of the different naming cultures found in China and English-speaking countries. For many Westerners interacting with foreigners, skipping over the meaning of your given name is a shame: You miss the chance to not only add some charm to an introduction, but also share an important part of Chinese culture.

When I chose my byline name for Quartz, I went with Zheping Huang. This is the only name that I feel I belong to. I would regret it not coming along with my pieces.

My colleague Siyi Chen thinks along the same lines. In her school days in China she tried everything from Lucy to Susan to Claire. Living in the US, s drawing some laughter but she enjoys the uniqueness brought by her Chinese first name, and the ensuing recognition that she is a Chinese -born Chinese).

LearningLeaders – All Rights Reserved - 8/5/17 18 she was a teenager. Some Chinese names are too confusing in English, among them He Shiting (何诗婷), a common name for girls. And in any case, whether to have an English name is a personal choice.

But my point is, if is just Anika, and かいと小明 just be Xiaoming?

BY: Zheping Huang

SOURCE: Quartz https://qz.com/908929/after-being-james-peter-and-william-i-decided- to-stick-with-my-chinese-name/

ARTICLE 6 ASIAN STUDENTS TALK ABOUT HOW THEY GOT THEIR ENGLISH NAMES February 29, 2016

When did a Min Jee suddenly become an Anna?

my name on the roll call, anxious they would pronounce my name

As for mine? There had always been this pause before my name was too familiar with. When they do manage to call it out, Hye Jin suddenly

name. As a kid, I was afraid to prove them wrong because questioning teachers meant questioning an authority figure, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

Many Asian individuals have faced similar problems, so having two it was conventional. During school, the majority of the Asian students would identify themselves by their English names. Quite frankly, I accepted such names without a number of them whose original names are now buried well within the pages of their passports.

None of this had really bothered me until I stumbled upon a very interesting website a few months ago. It was targeted towards Asians possible. I found this absolutely nonsensical and rather disturbing. If most sacred tools we could ever possess, when did it become so okay for a meager website to determine our identity? If societies are becoming more culturally aware, why is having an English name such a crucial factor in determining how well we integrate into this social fabric?

Names signify something much greater than a mere combination of letters on a page: They represent us, not only as unique individuals but also as a cultural group. When faced with such uncertainty, I urge all of

 Rachel Hyun Jin Bae, First Year at Emory, Biology contributed more problem now.

 John June Ho Hwang, First Year at Johns Hopkins, Molecular and Cellular Biology

 Brandy Jing Jing Piao, First Year at Emory, Psychology people used their English names only in their

society and just everyone else.

 Danny Seung Won Park, First Year at Columbia, Financial Engineering

Singapore. I like my English name because my Korean name is quite hard to pronounce.

as hard to pronounce, and so we

 Reynolds Ruomu Liu, First Year at Emory, Psychology and Business just dislike the way it sounds. My Chinese name is not easy to pronounce for foreigners.

 Heidi Ha Young Choi, First Year at Emory, Biology name.

 Yoon Ju Chloe Park, First Year at SAIC, Fashion Design college when there are just so many students. With the name Chloe, it was so different.

 Harry Yin Jiang Xiong, First Year at Emory, Undecided was absolutely random.

someone who is capab

 Yerin Yoon, First Year at Emory, International Studies instructor and randomly assigned to me as with every other student in the class.

the convenience of others. Thus, when I moved to Boston, I decided to

BY: Hye Kin Kwong

SOURCE: The Tab https://thetab.com/us/emory/2016/02/29/asian-students-english- names-1166