Why this Chinese is reluctant to give herself an English name

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In the popular TV series Women in Shanghai, advertisement company freshman Luo Haiyan was laughed at by her colleagues for having no English name. "What's your English name? You don't have one? Uh-oh," scoffed Luo's coworker Amy, a native Chinese.

In today's China, especially in first-tier cities, it is bizarre for young Chinese not to have an English name. When I'm having dinner at Jing'an Temple Central Business District in downtown Shanghai, I often hear office gossip from the next table - usually young Chinese ladies in exquisite clothes talking about their colleagues Linda, Mary, Eric, etc. These English names, mixed in with their Putonghua or Shanghai dialect, sound quite funny.

English names have become a standard feature of China's modern workplace and campuses, and those who don't have one are considered old-fashioned or from the countryside. This is particularly true in foreign enterprises. In Women in Shanghai, Luo finally named herself Harriet after being embarrassed by a foreign client who failed to pronounce her Chinese name.

Hence it may surprise you that I, a Shanghai-based reporter at an English-language newspaper who often deals with expatriates, do not have an English name. I'm personally reluctant to give myself one, nor do I think it is necessary.

My Chinese name Lanlan is easy enough for foreigners to pronounce. Thanks to my parents, the simple name they gave me has yet to be mispronounced. If someone's Chinese name contains "difficult" characters such as yue, lü, ruan or ce, he or she might consider an English name. But luckily, I've never had this concern.

I've grown bored by the English names that most Chinese give themselves, which are repetitive and uncreative. Unlike the millions of available Chinese names, only several dozen English names are available, of which fewer fit the taste of we Chinese.

I personally know three Penny, four Chloe, five Julia and six David. Compared with their unique, elaborate Chinese names, their English names are ordinary and boring. Conversely, some young people try too hard to give themselves "creative" English names, but many of these are laughably ridiculous. 

For example, on Quora there is a post titled "what are some of the 'best' English names Chinese people give themselves but are not generally found outside China," under which netizens from around the world shared lots of weird names such as Satan, Cherry, Rabbit, Vampire, Yale, Harvard, Lolita, Nokia, Easy and Anyway. 

"I knew a pair of programmers whose names were Sh*t and F**k," netizen Paul Denlinger wrote. "Among more acceptable names, my favorite was a network admin named Benjamin Franklin."

In most cases, giving yourself an English name is a personal preference. Having an English name can make one look more "fashionable" or communicative, but that's about it. Native Chinese cannot add their self-made English names onto any official documents including ID cards or passports. In other words, an English name is no more than a cute nickname.

Dispensable English names are to some extent seen as a social status in China, implying that locals with English names are superior to those without. I read in the news that a Chinese mother publicly claimed on her social media that she would never send her children to a kindergarten where kids have no English names. In Beijing, a five-year-old local girl named "Lucy" refused to make friends with a little Chinese boy who had no English name, according to Phoenix Weekly in May 2017.

Chinese actresses Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, Fan Bingbing and many others do not have English names, and nobody would ever say that they failed to succeed in the foreign marketplace. After all, a name is just a name. But it cannot outshine one's true personality and character. Having an English name could be helpful in a globalized workplace or campus, but it should never be one's weapon to look down on others.

Source: Global TImes

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1109870.shtml

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