Choosing an English moniker has become part of Chinese global engagement - and bloggers are proud of the weird ones

Almost the minute he arrived in Tokyo, in September 1897, Chinese revolutionary Sun Wen found himself in a bind. Having narrowly escaped China after failing to overthrow the Qing emperor, he was trying to check into the exclusive Taikakukan Hotel without giving away his real name.

Suddenly, he recalled a house on the way to the hotel that had a nameplate reading Nakayama (中山; zhōng shān) - that would do as an alias for the time being, he thought.

Although Sun never called himself Zhongshan in his writings - and kept changing his name, including to Takano and Mr Aloha from Hawaii - the Chinese pronunciation of this alias has somehow ended up as his official name in history books.

Every Chinese city has a street, park, square or school that bears this name. Chinatowns around the world, meanwhile, have structures that commemorate Sun Yat-sen (孙逸仙 sūn yì xiān), yet another of Sun's assumed names from later life.

Known today as the Father of the Nation, Sun is undoubtedly China's most famous example of success achieved under a foreign name.

For the 500,000 students who depart China each year to study abroad, as well as hordes of young professionals and entrepreneurs hoping to stay competitive in a global economy, adopting a foreign name is as much a strategy to prevent awkward mispronunciation as it signals their arrival on the world stage.

Late last year, Lindsay Jernigan, an entrepreneur from the United States, set up Best English Name, a consultancy in Shanghai aimed at helping Chinese clients find the perfect name and steering them away from comically bad ones.

By then, the phenomenon of Chinese students and professionals running afoul of English naming conventions was well documented.

Journalist Peter Hessler's memoir, River Town, featured a Chinese student named Mo Money, while Public Radio International's coverage of the issue introduced us to people named Cinderella, Dreamjazz and Yes.

Hilarity ensues, Jernigan says, China's

"wildly different" naming customs get transposed onto English, such as the emphasis on a name that has clear meaning and is unique.

The multiple identities of Sun Yat-sen, who was born before China's 20th-century modernizing push and attended a Confucian school, fit the pattern of ancient Chinese naming traditions. Since at least the Zhou Dynasty (c.11th century-256 BC), as recorded in the Book of Rites (礼记), a person had at least two names in his or her lifetime.

A personal name (名 míng), would be given three months after a child is born. It was divided into a big name (大名 dà míng), noted in the family's genealogical records, and a small name (小名 xiǎo míng) or milk name (奶名 nǎi míng) used by close family members.

Additional names may be given when a child starts Confucian or missionary school or, as in the case of Sun, when they are baptized. Both men and women of a certain status also received a courtesy name (字 zì) when they reached maturity. Together, 名字 (míng zì) is the modern Chinese word for a person's name.

Far from observing an ancient rite, the modern tradition of adopting an English name is rooted in China's present manner of global engagement. The current wave of English naming started after reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, as businesspeople sought better ways to communicate with new foreign investors.

After the media covered Jernigan's business, there was a bit of a backlash on the internet. Bloggers argued that bad names were not a big deal, as they can easily be changed, and that a person can have multiple English names for different settings.

An article on news portal Sina advises that parents pick an English name for their child that is easy to pronounce - Sisi, Momo or Lolly, for example.

Alternatively, parents should aks children to pick a name they like, which may explain why one bemused blogger from Henan province who wrote how her mother's kindergarten class was filled with children named Elsa, Anna and even Ultraman.

Implicit in these suggestions is the idea that English names are transient. They are chosen according to a person's needs and preferences, with the understanding they can be replaced if necessary.

There is also a distinction between using an English name out of convenience or preference.

Another online parenting guide cautions new parents against giving their children Westernized legal names. This is defined as names composed of Chinese characters that approximate common English names, or at least follow English phonetic rules when rendered in pinyin, such as Lili, Yuna or and Anni.

Putting on Western pretensions, the author writes, "conveys to others a devaluation of your own culture. Such an impression … is too a high price to pay for just a name". Like the 名 (míng) of old, the legal names of Chinese children "should still reflect their cultural heritage and their ancestral ties", it adds.

This is not to say that established naming traditions in either culture can't learn new tricks. Composite English names, such as Dreamjazz, are a particular breed of handle that result from substituting two English words for the two meaningful characters that make up many Chinese names.

This is gaining a veneer of legitimacy along with the rising profile of celebrities like Angelababy, who chose her stage name in classic fashion by mashing together her primary school English name with her childhood name.

Socially, English names fill an important gap in communication left open by Chinese culture. Some say English names are attractive in the Chinese workplace because they are more egalitarian and less confusing than older, hierarchical forms of address.

In traditional Chinese culture, it was forbidden for people without close personal relationships to address one another by name, and for younger or subordinate individuals to use their seniors' names. Instead, one used each other's last name preceded by a variety of titles, such as teacher, uncle or even old.

English names, which exist outside of the ritual and emotional implications of the Chinese 名 (míng), are the ideal compromise between distance and familiarity.

The Chinese blogosphere has one other favorite line of defense against the mockery of weird English names: pointing out that Chinese names adopted by Westerners who reside or do business in China also run the gamut from the overly literal to the grandiose, from Sun Wukong (the Monkey King from Journey to the West) to Mulan (from the ancient poem or, more likely, the Disney movie).

A psychological study might be needed to figure out why we all seem to reach for the stars when we get the chance to reinvent our identity in a new language, but maybe it's rooted in an intrinsic creative impulse we share.

After all, if someone came to us in our preschool or turbulent teenage years with the offer to pick out a new name, any name we liked, would any of us have stopped our imagination from running wild?

Courtesy of The World of Chinese, www.theworldofchinese.com

The World of Chinese

(China Daily European Weekly 10/14/2016 page23)