Giving kids a Chinese name in an English-speaking country

kyanges said:

It's just anecdotal, but from my experience growing up in the US, names aren't really a problem either way.

The child, and I speak as a 2nd generation myself, is going to grow up immersed in the native culture no matter what, and feeling "different" is going to happen regardless of what their name is. They will know the "societal norms". There's simply no avoiding it.

As for "fitting in", they will look different, and it's going to change how others perceive them before they even say a word, name or no name. I only have a Chinese last name myself, and just having an English first name has done nothing for me to fit in. Instead, all that's really matter is how I handle my own heritage and the inevitable questions.

This is sort of a tangent, but more practically, if it comes down to being hired for a job, and I'm finding myself being passed over because of my Chinese name, then I would start to wonder if I really wanted to work at that location at all. I know not everyone can afford to be choosey, or even have the luxury of ignoring racism (at any level), but it's would be difficult to overlook that kind of blatant discrimination.

The take away: From my experience, a native sounding name is often only a small and usually inconsequential part of assimilating.

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I was referring more to childhood and maybe the early teen years which include primary, middle, and maybe high school, as it struck me as referring to a newly born baby.

solarz said:

Sorry, but that's a pretty narrow-minded view. English speaking people routinely pronounce foreign names without problem: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Aung San Suu Kyi, Tenzin Gyatso, Jawaharlal Nehru. Why should a Chinese name be any different? I've never had an English name my whole life, and I'm doing just fine, thank you very much. I would never expect non-Chinese speakers to pronounce my name properly, and I don't mind that at all.

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I'm sorry you feel my view is narrow-minded as I feel I'm a pretty open-minded person myself. I'm not going to be discriminating against anyone by something as stupid as the color of their skin, their heritage, or their name, but then I hold myself and other adults to higher standards than I'd necessarily hold to grade-school children.

icbeodragon said:

I'm sorry you feel my view is narrow-minded as I feel I'm a pretty open-minded person myself. I'm not going to be discriminating against anyone by something as stupid as the color of their skin, their heritage, or their name, but then I hold myself and other adults to higher standards than I'd necessarily hold to grade-school children.

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Sorry, I did not mean to imply anything about you personally. I am just irritated at the idea that one has to conceal one's cultural identity in order to fit in. Your view is actually a view held by most of the first-gen Chinese immigrants. It's something that I just can't agree with.

I've changed 4 schools from grade 1 to 6, 3 if you don't count the 2 years in China. Two of those schools were in Quebec City, where there was very little Asian presence. I was the only asian in my class. It's just my personal experience, but I've never been tempted to get myself an English name.

In fact, from my experience with Chinese friends of the same age, it was in high school that most of them started to take an English name. I think it's during the teenage years that we get the most pressure to fit in.

My only experience with chinese kids with chinese names is the shock and *utter terror* when finding out that I had been talking to them under their English pseudonym and not their legal name all that time when viewing a yearbook which contains the full legal names of people. I'm pretty sure that changing last names is more unusual than not, so the other thing I've noticed is that Asians dominate the last portions of the yearbook (which contain the letters W and Z) with the local Zhang's and the local Wong's, etc.

Since I grew up in a racially diverse place (the highschool I went to had a slight Asian majority, followed by approximately equal numbers of Caucasians, Hispanics and African-Americans), there wasn't 'much' racism directed towards Asians with asian names. The only prevalent example I remember is the common usage of "We're getting to the Asian portion!" when flipping to the final pages of the yearbook, but other than those two points, I never really had much problems with Chinese with Chinese names or indeed any diaspora with their native names (there was a Russian guy with a difficult last name, but he was about it ).

IronsightSniper said:

My only experience with chinese kids with chinese names is the shock and *utter terror* when finding out that I had been talking to them under their English pseudonym and not their legal name all that time when viewing a yearbook which contains the full legal names of people.

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LOL, that's happened once with my wife at work. She uses an english name at work, but her employment record uses her chinese name. So when she first started working there and her name appeared on the schedule, her co-workers would be like: "who the hell is this person?".

solarz said:

Sorry, I did not mean to imply anything about you personally. I am just irritated at the idea that one has to conceal one's cultural identity in order to fit in. Your view is actually a view held by most of the first-gen Chinese immigrants. It's something that I just can't agree with.

I've changed 4 schools from grade 1 to 6, 3 if you don't count the 2 years in China. Two of those schools were in Quebec City, where there was very little Asian presence. I was the only asian in my class. It's just my personal experience, but I've never been tempted to get myself an English name.

In fact, from my experience with Chinese friends of the same age, it was in high school that most of them started to take an English name. I think it's during the teenage years that we get the most pressure to fit in.

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Fair enough, and the individual's own choice is the most important, in any case.

icbeodragon said:

Fair enough, and the individual's own choice is the most important, in any case.

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Except that most of us did not choose our names.

I feel that one's name is a gift. A gift from our parents, or perhaps grandparents, or maybe some other caretaker. Like all other gifts, it should be meaningful, and a parent's gift to a child should above all serve as an encouragement.

I am one of the few among my buddies that does not have a Christian name. Even many new comers gave themselves English names upon arrival, or even when they were back in China. I, like Solarz, believe that we should keep and honor our heritage. People of other ethnicity all have names connected to their respective heritage. We, Asian Americans, should do the same.

I understand the side effects associated with it. When I applied colleges and graduate schools, I was always put in the "foreign student" file folder because my name sounds foreign. I found out about this in college after I got admitted, that I was admitted as a foreign student, not domestic. I found out about the mis-filing during the admission phase with graduate school cause they called me and asked me for my TOFEL score. I had to tell them I was an American and GRE was enough. I even faxed them my US passport. The mis-filing occurred multiple times with this school. I called once. They couldn't find my file in the domestic folder and had to go to the foreign folder to find me. I had to tell them again on the phone that I was a US citizen. They apologized and promised me that they would put my file in the correct folder. When I visited them about 2 weeks later, my file was again in the foreign folder. I again corrected them. It happened one more time before they sent me the acceptance letter. When I formally joined the program and had to ask for my files for some stipend issues, guess what? My file again went into the foreign folder. I almost blew up there in the office. The secretary must have known I was very upset cause she apologized like there's no tomorrow. I simply said to her that this was the 4th/5th time that this thing happened. I hope it will never happen again. If it does, I would see it as discrimination! She got a little nervous at about that time. And it never happened again.

My buddies suggested that I would not have this problem if I simply changed my name. I said NO. I am Chinese. And I am proud of it. Just like Italians are proud of their heritage and Irish celebrate St. Patrick's day, Chinese Americans should be allowed to, at least, proudly display our names.

solarz said:

Except that most of us did not choose our names.

I feel that one's name is a gift. A gift from our parents, or perhaps grandparents, or maybe some other caretaker. Like all other gifts, it should be meaningful, and a parent's gift to a child should above all serve as an encouragement.

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It is a gift though as you mention, not a shackle.