My wife (Taiwanese) and I (American) are expecting our first child. We still have not decided upon a name, English or Chinese.
We are also tempted to choose separate names for each language. Use the Chinese name for Taiwanese household registration and use the English name when we do the U.S. paperwork with AIT. Would this be a problem? My wife already does this. She only has her Chinese name on your Taiwanese household registration and Taiwanese passport, but an English name she chose when naturalized in the U.S. on her American passport.
Iād be interested in hearing about how other similarly-situated couples have handled this situation and what your thoughts are about using different names, depending upon the language you are speaking (whether or not both names are āofficialā).
Hi and welcome to the forum.
Living in Taiwan there are no problems giving your baby a Chinese name and an English name, I think youād find most of the parents here do that.
Legaly or administratively it isnāt a problem at all. My son as his English name on his foreign passeport and his Chinese name on his ARC.
And congratulation on your baby! :bravo:
My boy has an English and a Chinese name. He uses each in different circumstances. He used his Chinese name all through taiwanese school and now uses his English name at his new school (American-international school). He uses his English name on his US passport and US stuff.
For the first 3 years of his life, my wife and in-laws couldnāt agree on a Chinese name that was suitable (auspicious) to all of them, so we called him ä»ä» (zai zai), which just means āsmall boyā. His English name is Zack, after my older brother, Zichory Zachary, who died at birth. My wife was none too keen on naming him after my unfortunate brother, and when my boy became sick at a week old and had to live in two different hospitals for two months, my wife was convinced that I was an idiot for naming Zack after my ill-fated brother, especially since my fatherās older brother also died at birth and we were living in the house where my grandfather was bornā¦ my wife was convinced that we had bad luck in my family and in that house and that naming our boy Zack was just inviting trouble and ill-fortune in through the front doorā¦ We still call him ä»ä» occassionally.
Anyway, no problem with two namesā¦ one Chinese and one English.
This can be a problem. Believe it or not, or boy is 11 yrs old and still doesnāt have an āenglishā name.
He has a Taiwan passport with his Chinese name.
Weāve decided to let him choose oe that āfeelsā right for him.
So far we have said NO to:
James Brown ----
Issac Hayes ----
Sam Dave ----
Otis Redding ----
Charlie Parker ----ā¦although this one is still in the running. I kind of like it.
But we think he will settle on one and be satisfied with it.
He doesnāt care what we call him, as long as we donāt call him late for supper!
Our kids have Chinese and English names, and my family-name.
We put a lot of effort into finding names that sounds similar in Chinese, English and my native language - it works great, and no confusion.
Their biggest grief these days are that they donāt have my wifeās family-name, as they are big fans of the #40 Wang (NYY pitcher)
We did two separate names. One reason was that I didnāt want people to be able to pick them out on paper as being ādifferentā in either langauge. That is not something that I wanted some nameless, faceless bureaucrat to be able to do. Another was that they should be able to move smoothly from one cultural situation to another. The last reason was that my wifeās family has no sons, so I allowed that thier Chinese last name be the same as my wifeās. However, there is some alignment in thier Chinese and English names so that it makes sense.
Thanks for your replies! It is nice to hear that Iām not a politically incorrect, backwards thinking, linguistic imperiallist for wanting to select two separate names that will fit well into our two respective cultures. Iāve outlined some of the arguments against using two names or changing/altering your name for another culture on my Squidoo lens: squidoo.com/naming-multicultural-babies/, but Iāll repeat (i.e. paste, Iām lazy) here:
Arguments Against:
Recently, a good friend of mine expressed his strong belief that (in his words) āone should not try too hard to conform oneās name for the sake of people who may not be able to appreciate it or pronounce it properly.ā In the past I taught English as a foreign language. When I started, in the early 1990ās, it was still common to have students select common English names (just as I used a French name in French Class in High School). This was just one part of the āWhole Languageā approach to language instruction. But I soon learned that practice was controversial. To some it smacks of ālinguistic imperialismā; to others it unnecessarily strips the students of a large part of their self-identity.
Feelings about taking on additional names are much stronger outside the classroom, but the arguments are similar. Below I list some common arguments against the practice of re-naming yourself or your children to fit a particular culture.
Changing your childās name or having multiple names is confusing to friends and family. Rarely is there a clean cultural division among your friends, family, and acquaintances.
Having an odd name can build character. You canāt protect your child from all teasing and bullying, nor should you. Generally, the reason parents give their children more common or more easily pronounced names is so that they will āfit in.ā A parentās goal shouldnāt be to raise unexceptional wall-flowers who are afraid to stand out of the crowd, but rather children who respect themselves and their cultural heritage.
Some Arguments that I made for:
In Defense of Multiple Names
For many people, altering your name, or selecting an entirely new name, is an appropriate choice. Here I discuss several reasons why you may desire to use multiple names.
Iāve had many Taiwanese and Chinese people tell me that they hate how English-speakers butcher their names. My wifeās name, for example, contains a sound that doesnāt exist in the English language (the Mandarin Chinese aspirated ārā), so when we were living in the United States, nobody could pronounce it unless they practiced Chinese pronunciation. She hated the way Americanās pronounced her name and didnāt want to have to hear it anymore. The best solution to naming our baby might be to find a name that sounds good in both Chinese and English. But it is hard to find a good Chinese name that sounds nice in English and doing so may mean compromising on other important naming considerations such as local beliefs, family tradition, and what our preference would be if we didnāt need to consider how it would sound to Americans.
If your childās name is difficult pronounce and remember, it could have a negative professional impact. By this, I donāt mean due to racism or ethnic bigotry. Changing your name will do little to help with that and I would never advocate changing your name to make chauvinists happy. What I mean is that a very difficult name makes it more uncomfortable for people to do business with you and much harder for you to stick in their mind. This is a very personal choice for anyone doing business. I certainly respect people who refuse to change their name for business or making life more comfortable for themselves, but I also respect a personās decision to change their name for the same reason. I have little patience, however, with people who are overly self-righteous on this point and expect everyone to make strong efforts to get their name right. If you are my friend, a customer, or someone else that I care about for business or personal reasons I will certainly make that effort (it is only polite and a good business practice). But if you are a stranger trying to sell me something or convince me to do something, donāt get upset by the fact that I havenāt studied thousands of languages and am not inclined to give a whole lot of time to getting your name right.
I donāt expect people in Taiwan to get the English pronunciation of my name right and I donāt mind using the Chinese translation of my name. If the Chinese translation of my English name was very difficult to remember and say for most Taiwanese, or if it sounded like a bad joke, I would simply select a more standard Chinese name.
Who says we have to use one name at one time our entire lives? In many cultures today or in the past, it was common for people to have multiple names for various purposes or phases in their lives (pen names, honorific names, religious names, and names for coming of age, the death of a parent, etc.) I see no reason why using multiple names should be objectionable in anyway.
Thanks again for your thoughts. Forumosa is great!
Mine will have the two names, but the meaning will be the same. I expect her English name to be semi-permanent, not a nick name. Nothing wrong with nick-naming, but you need a real name to ground yourself. First know yourself then you can assume other identities.
For me it comes down to knowing who you are. My daughter will have a name that works for her in both languages and she will know it is hers. If it werenāt for my unfortunate last name (in Chinese) both names would be relatively teasing free too.
Her and her mom are already talking about that. To be honest, the word āauspiciousā gives me the hives. I wonāt select a name I hate just because it is āauspiciousā but the Chinese name is really a choice that is up to my wife and her family. I just donāt have the ear for it. I like my sister-in-lawās name, for example: Wan-Ting. But both her and my wife hate it. They think it is too cute and too a common. They think it is a āmarket place nameā. My Chinese name suggestions tend to be met with rolling eyes.
What sources do the fortune tellers consult anyway?
Re deciding whether to give your child your Chinese name or your wifeās, I think these three things are worth considering:
1.) How assimilated are you? If you speak Chinese at near-native level and you are somewhat assimilated to local culture, then I suggest following the norm for naming children. It seems to be a consistency issue to me.
2.) Whatās your relationship with your in-laws like? I get along with mine, but any child of mine would only be given their surname over my dead body. The practice of giving a child the motherās surname traditionally means that the child belongs to her family, not the husbandās. In the past, permission from bridesā parents to marry was sometimes given with the condition that the first or second son would be given over to the wifeās family. That child would be responsible for looking after his motherās parents in their old age, and would of course carry on their name. This was most common in situations when a family had no sons. This doesnāt happen as much now, but I still know of a few recent (past 20 years) cases like this in both Taiwan and HK. With the one child policy in the PRC, it still happens in a lot of villages where there are lots of boys and very few girls. Parents of girls can be pretty demanding when marriage talk begins, and this is something that is demanded from time to time.
Your Chinese name and your childās taking of it may have little significance for you, but giving your child your wifeās surname can hold great significance to your wifeās parents and others. Depending on where you live, many people would still interpret it as you having given your child over to the in-lawās family. And to preempt those who will say that they asked their wife or in-laws if this is so and got a no answer, that is just plain BS. Many will deny that this perception or practice still exists in Chinese culture because it is considered backwards and a bit embarrassing, but it exists nonetheless.
3.) Bastard child comments. Letās face it: if your mixed child goes to a local school, he or she is already likely to be the subject of some annoying if not insulting comments. Iāve known or known of a few mixed kids who took momās name here in HK, and all of them have gotten bastard child comments at school. Once kids find out that a mixed childās surname is the same as momās (and they always seem to find out), the bastard-son-of-a-sailor comments start. Aside from #2 above, daddy disappearing is really the only other reason for giving momās surname to a child in Chinese culture.
I get along with my mother-in-law very well. She is financially independant and not traditional about these things. We have discussed and joked about the connotations in Taiwanese/Chinese culture, but I really didnāt care so long as name on U.S. passport is mine.
I hadnāt thought about Jiveās third point. Yet, it seems that the potential for teasing exists either way. Either the child gets the bastard comments, or is teased because what Iāve been using as the translation of my surname is not a real Chinese surname.
Another option is to not use my wifeās surname, but rather my mother-in-lawās surname, which is a more likely transliteration of my English surname. (The sound is the same as the first sylable of my last name.)
Simply changing the character I use for my name in Chinese is not so simple as Iām on my wife Household Registration and Iām not looking forward to whatever paperwork Iād need to go through to change my name.
This is why I did it. But as for the rest, it depends upon the family. The younger generations (at least in Taiwan), donāt pay much attention to the rest. My family is the youngest brother so they donāt have a lot of the baggage.
As for the bastard stuff - that comes with the territory and with the higher divorce rate Daddy being AWOL - not so uncommon these days as it once was.
We of course chose an English and Chinese name. We had the English names for both a boy or a girl picked out before our daughter was even 3 months along in the womb. I left the chinese name up to my wife. our daughter was born in the US, so all her official stuff has her English name on it. here, we use her Chinese name.
I wanted a name that was unique, but not wierd, and have it mean something. We decided on Sabrina. I found the Social Security site very helpful when decided on a name. It had an interactive chart that showed the populariy of each name in each year dating back to the early 20th century.
