I knew last year a Korean exchange student. He had two given names - a Korean name and oddly enough, an American name, which he went by here. I’m not sure if his American name was given to him by his parents, chosen by him or somehow assigned by some governing body, and I’m curious. His Korean name would have sounded funny to American ears - was he given/did he choose an American name so the yokels wouldn’t laugh at his real name? Did a governing body of some sort give him an American name, sort of like what some immigration officials did at the turn of the 20th century to numbers of immigrants with hard-to-pronounce or unusual names? Or is it a common practice nowadays in Korea to name a child with an American and a native name?
I work with two Chinese brothers. Both of them have names that could be easily pronounced by Westerners, but while the younger prefers to be called by his Chinese given name, the older one prefers to be called by the American-sounding name Casey (which shares some pronunciation keys with his Chinese name). I suppose it’s just a matter of preference; if I were living in an Asian country where native speakers might have trouble with my American given name, I’d probably adopt a native-language name that was similar to mine in some way to make it easier for everybody.
I doubt the name was given to him by a governing body, personally.
Over the years I’ve worked with several professionals who immigrated from China and most of the older ones took, on their own initiative, I believe, Western names such as Charles or Tommy.
But the younger ones, beginning at around my age (49), don’t seem as likely to do that anymore.
There has been a history of discrimination against those of descent from Asian ethnic groups in the United States. For many decades, the largest Asian ethnic group represented here was the Chinese. The custom of taking on English first names was probably a way of trying ease the ill effects of discrimination and racism. I think that started the tradition. Even now many, Chinese-Americans, especially, seem to assume that it is a necessity of getting along in America to adopt an English name. Many say because they don’t want to bother having to explain the pronunciation of a name that Ameriocans are never going to be able to pronounce properly anyway.
I myself am an Indian-American, and this idea bothers me a lot. I believe that those of us from non-European ethnic backgrounds should assert our ethnic traditions regardless of what the majority culture might think. And, really, most of my fellow Americans, after an initial couple of minutes’ effort to explain my name, make no issue of it thereafter.
I think it is just as obnoxious to assume that Americans can’t deal with unusual names as it would be for Americans to expect everyone to do away with “difficult” names. I use my Indian name – I don’t expect European-Americans to be able to pronounce it perfectly; all I expect is that they be willing to give it a try and not act like I’m being unrasonable by not giving them any easy out with an English nickname.
We chose to give the kids “American” or Western names when we adopted them. It wasn’t a denial of their obvious heritage as much as a desire to not make them stand out even more in their lives.
I’ve never regretted the choice, since both kids have always known their birth names. They can change to those birth names if they wish to, I’d never stand in their way.
In addition to finding out that I was pronouncing my son’s first name wrong, I’ve learned that I had mis-pronounced my sister-in-law’s name the entire time she was in the family. I said the Americanization of her name, which is ( IIRC ) Mandarin.
Perhaps the chosing of “American” names has more to do with the respect for one’s own name, and it’s proper useage and pronounciation. Also, since the use may be temporary- a few years at best, sometimes- it can be dropped later when one goes back to China, Korea, etc. It keeps one’s real birth name pristine, and thereofore it’s only used by those who can say it accurately.
Just a WAG from a fellah with a Dong-Huhn and a Sung-Hee running around the house. 
Cartooniverse
Most Asians who have immigrated to North America, that I’ve known have picked their “American” names more or less at a whim.
Sometimes, an English name that has some of the sounds of the original name may be chosen. Other times it may be the name of someone the parents admire. I’ve also met people who just used names that happened to be the first ones that popped into their parents’ heads.
I don’t think people fear people mispronouncing the names as much as they want to appear more assimilated.
While it may have been an attempt to assimilate, I don’t think it was to meant to ease the ill effects of discrimination and racism. Because I don’t think someone who was inclined to discriminate against Chinese-Americans would decide not to because a particular person has a Western name, nor do I think an immigrant would believe that it would.
[hijack] Why do these questions (both this one about adopting a English name, and a similar one about giving their children English names) only come up about non-Western names? I never hear questions about why, when Giuseppe from Rome moves to NY, he chooses to go by Joe. I suspect the reasons are not completely different.[/hijack]
My father emigrated from Greece in 1910. His first name was Dimitri, but he went by James. He also partially Anglicized his last name.
A colleague of mine (I work in engineering research) is an immigrant from Hong Kong. He spells his last name ‘Ng’. His brother, who is in technical sales, changed the spelling to ‘Eng’, because it looked more westernized.
Some good friends of mine are recent Thai immigrants. They address their seven-year-old daughter as ‘Noke’ (at least that’s what it sounds like to my Yankee ears). In English, ‘Noke’ translates to ‘Bird’, which is how everyone else addresses her.
Three data points of what seems like the same phenomenon.
FU ShakespeareThe answer is probably easier than you think. Either the person that immigrated over chose their name beforehand (by whim as someone mentioned), or when they were learning English, the teacher let them choose a name or assigned one to him/her (that is, given the teacher has a pretty good knowledge of English names).
In many Chinese classes, when students pick Chinese names, usually you try to find names that sound like the English counterpart, or have some characteristics/traits of the person in the Chinese characters.
When a lot of Chinese immigrants came over in the 19th/20th century, a lot of their surnames were given their own spelling automatically (sometimes randomly – but, they’d usually try to spell it how they heard it). For example in standard pinyin, Chang is really Zhang. There’s many others, but I can’t think of them right now. Ng, you can tell automatically is a Cantonese variation. It’s really hard to describe, there was really no such standard setting when the immigrants started arriving.
Personally, I really wish everyone would just keep the names they were born with, unless they sound like something embarrassing in English. A nation of immigrants ought to be able to handle it, and most of them are four syllables max.
Of course, I work in an immigration law firm, so I’m biased, because a) I’m used to dealing with some pretty unusual names, and b) it drives me batty when someone calls saying his name is Bill, and I spend half an hour looking everywhere for the guy’s case record before I realize that he is Vassilios on his passport.
Plus, if my great-grandparents had kept the names they were born with, my geneaology hobby would be a helluva lot easier, too!
I can’t agree more. Having a son named Dong just wouldn’t have cut it, in my humble opinion…
:eek:
I wish I could ask my great-grandfather why he choose to change his first name from “Ivan” to “John” but I suspect it’s because of the simple fact that Americans can’t wrap their brains around the pronounciation (it’s ee-VON, not EYE-van).
My Korean students here often have an English name simply because they used one in English class during high school.
When I took French in high school, I had a French name assigned to me by my teacher (M. Nichole… she was HOT!).
Greeks are fond of Anglicizing their names. Whenever Greeks would speak to me in English when I lived in Greece, they would invariably say things like, “Have you seen George?” It would take me a minute to realize they were talking Giorgos.
I dated a girl from Vietnam for a couple of years and neither she, nor any of her friends could pronounce my first name (Brian) without under-going what looked liked excruciating torture. My girlfriend gave me a knickname that was easier for her and her friends to pronounce which was quickly adopted by all of them. I didn’t mind a bit as it saved them from feeling embarrassed when they got my name wrong as they invariably would. Most of her friends adopted American names as it was easier for us “roundeyes” to pronounce an American name than to try and figure out how to pronounce theirs. Also, they felt it was a good way for them to show that they loved America and wanted to be a part of it.
acsenray, what makes you think that non-Europeans have been the only ones felt compelled to change their names? Scores of Germans living in America changed their names to less German sounding ones when the US entered World War One. I believe that even some Irish folks changed their names as well, when being Irish was looked upon as something horrible.
No one should be made to change their name, but if they want to, then it’s their right. Besides, if everyone kept the names associated with their ethnic heritage, and passed those names on to their children, we’d have a more separate society than we do now, with people distaining those of the same background who had names from another background.
Aspiring actors choose stage names, often to seem less ethnic, becuase it helps them get work by avoiding typecasting habits of agents and producers.
Houdini and Orwell changed their names to seem less Jewish, because of existing anti-semitism.
Irish, Italians, and Greeks in America have a pretty well-documented history of occasionally adopting less ethnic names in America. Not so much anymore, but in the 19th century it wasn’t too uncommon.
Chinese immigrants to Thailand have almost all adopted Thai last names, and now the country has a huge population of ethnic Chinese who speak two languages or more and according to many Thais this makes them better assimilated. When the economic crisis hit the region in 1997, Indonesians targeted rich Chinese, who they perceived as rich outsiders and who were envied for their successes. Many were killed, their shops burned, their daughters gang-raped. Nothing of the sort happened in Thailand, partially because of their more thorough integration. I’m not at all saying that those who fail to change thir names deserve to be attacked by ignorat thugs during recession–not at all–but that the motives for changing names can often manifest quite tangibly.
My father was a Chinese immigrant. He named me after his UCLA professor because he didn’t know wher else to turn for a good American name. At the time he didn’t realize that “Wesley” was not a good American name at all, but one that inspired other kids to beat me up anyway. But bless his heart, he meant well. 
Orwell? If you mean George Orwell, his real name was Eric Arthur Blair, which doesn’t sound very Jewish. 
I’ve always thought Orwell was just a pen name?
I once worked for a company with ties to a Japanese firm. Whenever programmers or other contacts visited from Japan, they were invariably named Steve. Very confusing, so we ended up calling them by thier Japanese surnames.
I think that’s different. Joe is a nickname for Giuseppe. I assume the OP is talking about changing from Asian names to English names that aren’t even similar. FWIW, I’ve noticed many of my Asian aquaintances seem to have chosen very traditional, old fashioned English names like Oliver.
I think Flamsterette X touched upon this in another thread a couple of months ago.
It’s just a trend. In Hong Kong, almost every Chinese colleague or friend of mine had a ‘Western’ name (not just ‘American’ ;)), that they chose when they were in their teens. This was in addition to their Chinese name. Thus, someone might be named Arthur Chan Man Ying (Chan being the family name, Man Ying being the Chinese given name).
Sometimes they would choose screen heroes, and sometimes they chose out of a dictionary, which led to some odd choices, including: Creamy Cheung, Twinkle Ling, my friend’s wife Canary Ting, Acute Chan, and Murder Wong.
A Western friend working in northern China was asked by his adult Chinese colleagues to provide Western names for them - somewhere in Shenyang there are seven people walking around introducing themselves to foreigners as Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, etc.
Meanwhile, on my birthday, I was given a Chinese name as a ‘present’, about which I was very honoured: Tsim Wai Tao (Jim, Great Wave).