Picking English name in China
Recently China has witnessed a craze for people adopting an English name as well as a Chinese one. The waitress serving your noodles may well proudly wear a name tag displaying their English name (‘Apple’ seems to be quite a popular name choice).
Partly this embrace of English nomenclature is for practical reasons – the difference between the Chinese and English languages means that often Chinese names are difficult to pronounce and remember for foreigners. Most Chinese who have had a foreign English teacher will have been given an English name, and several Chinese companies actively encourage their employees to pick an English name.
Lots of Chinese people really take pride in their English name. This is the name they may well choose to use for their e-mail and even to introduce themselves to new friends, English speakers or not. Choosing an English name is no easy task, and there are lots of different ways that people decide. Just as there are books of names to help parents choose a name for their babies in the West, China also has these kinds of books to help them pick their own English names.
Some of the names that they choose are surprising for people new to China. During my time here I have met people named Elephant, Bird, Echo, Pinky, Ahead, Cinderella, Coco and Storm, to name just a few of the more unusual examples. At first I wondered why they chose these names over the more regular choices like Bob or Alice. So far as I can tell, there are two main reasons.
The first is that Chinese names tend to be words that have a meaning, rather than just a word that is only known as being a name. Parents strive to find the exact right characters for their child’s name to indicate great character and bring the person good luck. This could help explain why people choose strong animal words for their English names, as this would suggest they too were big and mighty, or a sweet fruit to imply that their personality was also sweet. When a Chinese friend asked me to help her choose her name, she responded to each of my suggestions with “but what does that mean?”. Eventually we settled on a name that was the same as a pretty flower but is still recognized as a name in regular English usage.
Besides this, perhaps the reason people choose these unusual Chinese names is precisely that: because of their exoticness. In Chinese naming culture, the more unique the name, the better. In many cultures it is considered respectful to name your child after someone else, but in China this would be taboo. The search for a unique name even led to a Chinese couple recently deciding to name their child '@'. They explained to surprised officials that the English pronunciation of @, “at”, sounds like “love him” in Chinese.
Of course, this taking on a foreign name works the other way round too. Lots of people who come to China whether for business or study reasons, decide to adopt a Chinese name as well as their given one. Some choose the Chinese characters that sound most similar to the pronunciation of their name in English, others are more adventurous and pick names for reasons like their favorable meanings or delicious sounds.
