Hello everyone,
I am looking for an English name that is easy for people who does not know English to say it. Could anyone advice me what name is easy to say in Taiwan?
I thought of the following names, any pro and cons for them to use in Chinese speaking countries?
Jason
Alex
Vincent
Thomas
Would Alex or Jason be easier to pronounce for people who does not know English?
Thanks a lot. 
Jason, Alex, and Vincent are all fairly common âEnglish namesâ for Taiwanese ESL students. People may pronounce them with heavy Taiwanese accents, but the names will at least be very familiar for them.
Thomas is rarer here, but Tom is common enough.
In 2011, the most common English names boys chose for themselves (or had their teachers choose) were David, Peter, and Michael. For girls it was Amy, Vivian, and Lisa.
Kelvin, Calvin, Rich, Tim, Bill, Louis.
Keep it with in 2 syllables, and with no X (cause for most east Asians x has 3 syllablesâŠ)
[quote=âhansiouxâ]Kelvin, Calvin, Rich, Tim, Bill, Louis.
Keep it with in 2 syllables, and with no X (cause for most east Asians x has 3 syllablesâŠ)[/quote]
What do you mean for most east Asians x has 3 syllables?
Name like âAlexâ is pronounced with 2 syllables correct?
[quote=âmarbleâ][quote=âhansiouxâ]Kelvin, Calvin, Rich, Tim, Bill, Louis.
Keep it with in 2 syllables, and with no X (cause for most east Asians x has 3 syllablesâŠ)[/quote]
What do you mean x has 3 syllables?
Name like âAlexâ is pronounced with 2 syllables?[/quote]
I meant the work X itself. Say Xavier would be horribly rendered.
But you are right, Alex in usually rendered as Ai-Li-Ke-Si, the X wold be 2 syllables. Though that makes a single syllable name into 4 syllablesâŠ
Donât just make up one ⊠go to a fengshui master to get one that brings good fortune. Itâs Taiwan afterall, people will be impressed by your good name.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
[quote=âhansiouxâ]
I meant the work X itself. Say Xavier would be horribly rendered.
But you are right, Alex in usually rendered as Ai-Li-Ke-Si, the X wold be 2 syllables. Though that makes a single syllable name into 4 syllablesâŠ[/quote]
I thought Ai-Li-Ke-Si is Chinese words pin yin? The English name Alex will be pronounced by Taiwanese just like the Westerners pronounce as A lex correct?
[quote=âmarbleâ][quote=âhansiouxâ]
I meant the work X itself. Say Xavier would be horribly rendered.
But you are right, Alex in usually rendered as Ai-Li-Ke-Si, the X wold be 2 syllables. Though that makes a single syllable name into 4 syllablesâŠ[/quote]
I thought Ai-Li-Ke-Si is Chinese words pin yin? The English name Alex will be pronounced by Taiwanese just like the Westerners pronounce as A lex correct?[/quote]
If that said person is pretty good at pronunciation, then yes. But often theyâll get the Ale part right, then proceed to say Ke-Si.
[quote=âhansiouxâ][quote=âmarbleâ]
I thought Ai-Li-Ke-Si is Chinese words pin yin? The English name Alex will be pronounced by Taiwanese just like the Westerners pronounce as A lex correct?[/quote]
If that said person is pretty good at pronunciation, then yes. But often theyâll get the Ale part right, then proceed to say Ke-Si.[/quote]
For Taiwanese is Jason easier to pronounce than Alex?
I guess it depends on what you mean by âeasier to pronounce.â Nobody will struggle with the name Alex (old people and maybe some farmers aside), but they may not say it they way you are used to hearing it. âJasonâ may come out more like âJeh-sun,â but again, people wonât be confused when they hear/read this name.
Any common name, say the 100 most common boysâ names in the UK and US, will probably be fine. I have a slightly uncommon name (i.e., not many Hollywood stars or pop singers with it) and it can trip people up sometimes, but itâs basically only been an issue with older people. Thatâs why I have a Chinese name, anyway.
Andy is very easy for Chinese speakers to pronounce, but I thought half the fun was watching people struggle?
:no-no:
Howâs about Nin?[/quote]
Hmm, a name with a diacritic that most English speakers leave off and donât know how to pronounceâŠ
Google 'most popular names (so you wonât pick something ridiculously out of date such as Doris or Peggy) and pick a one syllable thing or two syllables without too many consonant clusters. Donât fixate on the meaning. Where I come from, you need to choose either a king or queenâs name or a New Testament name in order to not sound like an utter chav. No flower names.
As I was growing up, I heard about an American teenage girl who was a family friend named Lucy.
I finally met her after she came back to Taiwan with her husband and son. I found out her name is Ruth not Lucy.
I was shocked, I asked her why. She said no one could pronounce the âthâ, so she was called Lucy.
No Thomas, nothing with âthâ.
Oh! R tends to truned into L. Lice instead of rice.
[quote=âjmcdâ]
Oh! R tends to truned into L. Lice instead of rice.[/quote]
i was unfortunate enough to have to pick my own English name (cause I rejected the âEnglish nameâ my hippie parents gave me, they wanted to name me âShinyâ, WTF)
I chose the shortest name I could find at the time, and it was Rex.
As jmcd said, R becomes L, and X as I said is disasterous. So when I was in college, the Taiwanese classmates would call me âRiceâ but pronounced at âLiceâ, and that was in CaliforniaâŠ
They called me Rice so much, when they refered to me in Mandarin, theyâd call me ć°ç±łâŠ
[quote=âmarbleâ]
Would there be any problem with name Jason and Alex?[/quote]
The ânâ and the âxâ are difficult to pronounce. Some say the âlâ is tricky, but thatâs more a feature of Japanese than Chinese. The thing I would say is that they sound like Chinese names, not real names. âAlexâ is a shortening g of âAlexanderâ, and Jason sounds kind of low-class and old-fashioned (where I come from, before all the Jasons on the Internet pile on).
[quote=âhansiouxâ]
I was unfortunate enough to have to pick my own English name (cause I rejected the âEnglish nameâ my hippie parents gave me, they wanted to name me âShinyâ, WTF)
I chose the shortest name I could find at the time, and it was Rex.
As jmcd said, R becomes L, and X as I said is disasterous. So when I was in college, the Taiwanese classmates would call me âRiceâ but pronounced at âLiceâ, and that was in CaliforniaâŠ
They called me Rice so much, when they refered to me in Mandarin, theyâd call me ć°ç±łâŠ[/quote]
For Taiwan people, the English names are not registered in the birth certificate correct? I guess you can still change a new name.
Hard to imagine that Rex pronounced as Lice.
Does Alex sound like A lice?
[quote=âErmintrudeâ]
The ânâ and the âxâ are difficult to pronounce. Some say the âlâ is tricky, but thatâs more a feature of Japanese than Chinese. The thing I would say is that they sound like Chinese names, not real names. âAlexâ is a shortening g of âAlexanderâ, and Jason sounds kind of low-class and old-fashioned (where I come from, before all the Jasons on the Internet pile on).[/quote]
What do you mean sound like Chinese names?
Names that Taiwanese people choose such as as Jacky or Peggy.
A final n is easy for Chinese, since the language has that sound. The second syllable of Jason would be pronounced like Chinese æŁź (sen).
Alex would be very difficult because it ends with âxâ. They would say âa-leh-ke-siâ or something similar. Avoid consonant clusters and names that end with consonants other than n or ng.
Easy names would include Andy and Simon.
A final n is easy for Chinese, since the language has that sound. The second syllable of Jason would be pronounced like Chinese æŁź (sen).
.[/quote]
Taiwanese speakers flatten the first vowel, and æŁź would be a close-ish Chinese approximation on what â-onâ sounds like.
At the end of the day, what difference does it make? If people canât pronounce the difficult names, theyâll mangle the easy ones too: they all have vowels in. Just choose one you like.
TV is fckin gash. Enjoying âBenidormâ though.