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The Name Game

We can choose our friends, but few of us get to pick our own names. Most of us rely on our parents to perform this task, which can sometimes leave a question mark over their post-natal sanity. In China things are a little different. Chinese students of English usually have the happy, if often haphazard, task of choosing their English moniker, and a fair few of us lucky laowai get Chinese names given to us by friends or co-workers.

Back in the good old days when I earned an honest Beijing wage in the English classroom, one of the more interesting aspects of starting a new class was to inspect, and often radically alter, my students’ names. When the register was populated by four “Neos” (the third instalment of the Matrix had just been released), plus a “Crocodile,” a “Cygnet,” and a “Cinderella,” this task was fairly essential, especially when such students were expecting to forge high-profile careers in the global business community. 

For practically minded Chinese, picking and using an English name has long been viewed as a means of quickly bridging the linguistic and cultural divide. With more Chinese becoming internationalized and the number of foreigners living in China multiplying rapidly, picking an English name has become a rite of passage for most of the country’s younger, metropolitan generation.

It has not always been this way. In 19th-century China, choosing an English name was a privilege reserved for society’s elite; it indicated that a person had been educated with foreigners. The name selection process often involved protracted discussions between the individual, teachers, and foreign friends. Chinese sages would then evaluate potential names for their tonal qualities and astrological potency.

Although Chinese names are often confusing for westerners, it’s actually not that difficult to remember that most Chinese prefer to use their family name first, followed by their given or Christian name. If they have an English name, they follow the western convention of given name followed by family name. For example, “Chen Yan” becomes “Jillian Chen.” Sometimes the two versions may be combined, so it becomes Jillian Chen Yan, or Jillian C. Yan.

It might be tempting to laugh at someone with the name Crocodile, but we westerners should be grateful that so many Chinese get anglicized to help us out. Despite the fact that traditional Chinese names often have deep and beautiful meanings, many of us would undoubtedly have serious problems remembering their pronunciation, let alone how to write them. And, if we’re lucky enough to be given a Chinese name, try using it once in a while. After all, it can’t be any worse than Da Shan.