When Chinese-American Huan Hsu moved to Shanghai a year ago, he figured his 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 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.)
As one of his Chinese friends said, “A name is just a dai hao.” Dai hao, or code name, can also refer to a stock’s ticker symbol.