Onderwijs

How Guodong became Fred

When going abroad to work or study, many Chinese adopt Western first names. But how do they come to choose their Western names, and why in fact do they do it at all?

My first name is Guodong, but you can call me Fred. Please do, especially you, dear Westerner, because if you tried pronouncing my real name, it would probably sound something like, ‘Goo-oh-dong’, instead of its proper Chinese pronunciation, which sounds like, ‘Gurdon’.

Fred is my Western name, the name my fellow TU students and teachers now use when addressing me. But it still feels strange that this Western name I chose long ago, but never paid much attention to until arriving in the Netherlands, is now an essential part of my daily life. I am Fred.

Prior to adopting my Western name in 2004, I was living in China and following an English course to prepare for the IELTS exam. Our teacher, a Westerner, was hard-pressed to remember our Chinese names and frequently made mistakes, so we students decided to pick English names.

For choosing a Western name, I turned for help to my friend Fang Kan (Kevin), a Chinese guy studying English in Beijing. “Well, Fred’s a good choice,” Kan/Kevin said, with the solemnity of a high priest. “Firstly, it’s easy to pronounce, and secondly, it sounds like ‘Friend’.” Well, how could I reject this masterful blessing of my name choice by a top student at a prestigious Chinese university English department? Fred I became.

I of course had no idea then that Fred, and not my real name, would be the name I’d most frequently use one year later. And certainly I’m not the only Chinese with name issues. Most Chinese students have Western names, and invariably, they have a common feature: they’re easy to say, thus making it easy for Westerners to address us.

Western names help us adapt to living abroad and also ensure that our real names don’t prevent us from enlarging our social circles, because sometimes foreigners have difficulties linking our ‘difficult’ Chinese names with the right faces.

When living abroad, we Chinese also sometimes use our English names to avoid embarrassing situations if we used our Chinese names. For example, if two people with the common Chinese family names, ‘He’ and ‘She’, used these names abroad, they could end up being addressed by Westerners as Mr. She and Mrs. He!

It isn’t always easy to pick a nice Western name, though. For one thing, there are so many names to choose from, and what’s more, we Chinese tend to choose names for our children that have auspicious meanings, which isn’t the case in the West. At least I’ve never heard of a Western guy named, Handsome (Shuai) or Success (Chenggong)!

We Chinese do however try to avoid taking foreign names that have well-known devils attached to them, like Adolf (Hitler), or some other serial killer! Although perhaps a famous lady-killer’s name wouldn’t be bad? Maybe Don Juan is better than Fred!
Stupid pig

Deciding on a name isn’t easy, so we Chinese think about it carefully and follow some fairly utilitarian rules for choosing acceptable Western names. Firstly, it’s always wise to select a name that already exists and can be drawn from some famous public figures, like David (Beckham), or the name my friend Zhou Yifan chose, Tony (Blair) . perfect for studying in Britain – or like my friend Zhu Jinghang’ chosen name, Nicolas (Cage).

A second approach is to choose a name that’s close in pronunciation to your Chinese name, like Lee (Li) and Hugo (Yuguang). A third method that I personally don’t recommended is simply directly translating your Chinese name into English, which resulted in one Chinese guy calling himself, Ocean, the literal translation of his glorious Chinese name, Haiyang.

Some Chinese do disregard these rules and select names randomly or based on feeling. Thus, cool names like Magic are born. But again, beware, because, take the Western name Ben for example, which some Chinese guys adopt: The word ‘Ben’ in Chinese means stupid, and what’s worse, if this Chinese guy’s family name happens to be Zhu, then his name, Ben Zhu, in Chinese means, ‘Stupid Pig’!

As for a name’s national origin, most Chinese have no idea if our Western names are American, like Bob, or British, like Colin, or Dutch, like Jan. And really, our Western names don’t really matter: they’ll never appear in our passports, nor will our fellow countrymen ever use them.

It doesn’t necessarily follow however that our Western names are merely for Westerners, because when you’re playing an Internet game, the server may not accept Chinese characters. And then there’s this: Western pop culture is becoming so popular in China that nowadays it’s increasingly fashionable for the youth in China to adopt Western names, regardless of whether they’re planning to study abroad.

Our Western names are far more than a label: we grow into them and they become us. I am Fred, and I instinctively respond when I hear the name Fred being called. It’s also true that if I come across the name ‘Fred’ in the media, I always pay more attention and invariably feel excited and curious, and if this other Fred happens to be a cool or famous person, I confess, it does tickle my vanity!

Undeniably, having a Western name when abroad is convenient and gives us a certain identity. But now my only concern is if you still remember my real name? It’s Guodong Zhong, but okay, you can just call me Fred!

(Illustration: Juan Sebastian Sanchez, Colombia)

My first name is Guodong, but you can call me Fred. Please do, especially you, dear Westerner, because if you tried pronouncing my real name, it would probably sound something like, ‘Goo-oh-dong’, instead of its proper Chinese pronunciation, which sounds like, ‘Gurdon’.

Fred is my Western name, the name my fellow TU students and teachers now use when addressing me. But it still feels strange that this Western name I chose long ago, but never paid much attention to until arriving in the Netherlands, is now an essential part of my daily life. I am Fred.

Prior to adopting my Western name in 2004, I was living in China and following an English course to prepare for the IELTS exam. Our teacher, a Westerner, was hard-pressed to remember our Chinese names and frequently made mistakes, so we students decided to pick English names.

For choosing a Western name, I turned for help to my friend Fang Kan (Kevin), a Chinese guy studying English in Beijing. “Well, Fred’s a good choice,” Kan/Kevin said, with the solemnity of a high priest. “Firstly, it’s easy to pronounce, and secondly, it sounds like ‘Friend’.” Well, how could I reject this masterful blessing of my name choice by a top student at a prestigious Chinese university English department? Fred I became.

I of course had no idea then that Fred, and not my real name, would be the name I’d most frequently use one year later. And certainly I’m not the only Chinese with name issues. Most Chinese students have Western names, and invariably, they have a common feature: they’re easy to say, thus making it easy for Westerners to address us.

Western names help us adapt to living abroad and also ensure that our real names don’t prevent us from enlarging our social circles, because sometimes foreigners have difficulties linking our ‘difficult’ Chinese names with the right faces.

When living abroad, we Chinese also sometimes use our English names to avoid embarrassing situations if we used our Chinese names. For example, if two people with the common Chinese family names, ‘He’ and ‘She’, used these names abroad, they could end up being addressed by Westerners as Mr. She and Mrs. He!

It isn’t always easy to pick a nice Western name, though. For one thing, there are so many names to choose from, and what’s more, we Chinese tend to choose names for our children that have auspicious meanings, which isn’t the case in the West. At least I’ve never heard of a Western guy named, Handsome (Shuai) or Success (Chenggong)!

We Chinese do however try to avoid taking foreign names that have well-known devils attached to them, like Adolf (Hitler), or some other serial killer! Although perhaps a famous lady-killer’s name wouldn’t be bad? Maybe Don Juan is better than Fred!
Stupid pig

Deciding on a name isn’t easy, so we Chinese think about it carefully and follow some fairly utilitarian rules for choosing acceptable Western names. Firstly, it’s always wise to select a name that already exists and can be drawn from some famous public figures, like David (Beckham), or the name my friend Zhou Yifan chose, Tony (Blair) . perfect for studying in Britain – or like my friend Zhu Jinghang’ chosen name, Nicolas (Cage).

A second approach is to choose a name that’s close in pronunciation to your Chinese name, like Lee (Li) and Hugo (Yuguang). A third method that I personally don’t recommended is simply directly translating your Chinese name into English, which resulted in one Chinese guy calling himself, Ocean, the literal translation of his glorious Chinese name, Haiyang.

Some Chinese do disregard these rules and select names randomly or based on feeling. Thus, cool names like Magic are born. But again, beware, because, take the Western name Ben for example, which some Chinese guys adopt: The word ‘Ben’ in Chinese means stupid, and what’s worse, if this Chinese guy’s family name happens to be Zhu, then his name, Ben Zhu, in Chinese means, ‘Stupid Pig’!

As for a name’s national origin, most Chinese have no idea if our Western names are American, like Bob, or British, like Colin, or Dutch, like Jan. And really, our Western names don’t really matter: they’ll never appear in our passports, nor will our fellow countrymen ever use them.

It doesn’t necessarily follow however that our Western names are merely for Westerners, because when you’re playing an Internet game, the server may not accept Chinese characters. And then there’s this: Western pop culture is becoming so popular in China that nowadays it’s increasingly fashionable for the youth in China to adopt Western names, regardless of whether they’re planning to study abroad.

Our Western names are far more than a label: we grow into them and they become us. I am Fred, and I instinctively respond when I hear the name Fred being called. It’s also true that if I come across the name ‘Fred’ in the media, I always pay more attention and invariably feel excited and curious, and if this other Fred happens to be a cool or famous person, I confess, it does tickle my vanity!

Undeniably, having a Western name when abroad is convenient and gives us a certain identity. But now my only concern is if you still remember my real name? It’s Guodong Zhong, but okay, you can just call me Fred!

(Illustration: Juan Sebastian Sanchez, Colombia)

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