The experience of introducing two Taiwanese friends by their their English names, and having them shake hands while muttering their real names to each other.
When I had an employer who insisted every student needed an English name, one day a new student proudly proclaimed he didnāt have one āå ēŗęå¾ęåā. He wasnāt arrogant about it, just proud. He had obviously been coached. (This was over in 大éøland.) I would have accepted that, but an assistant (Chinese) teacher said we couldnāt accept it and proceeded to talk him into choosing an English name. It took about two minutes, and after that everything was fine.
My children each have a āchineseā name in Chinese pinyin, an āEnglishā name, and my family name. My daughterās āchineseā name is her first name and the only one she uses, and I find that most Taiwanese who are aware of it (e.g., whenever we do something with the government or at a hospital) insist on calling her by her middle name.
Back in the day I had students with names like Three Rocks, Flying Tiger, Jack Wilkes, Winddy, and a whole lot of Apple (ābecause my head looks like an appleā).
At work our emails are based on our real names, so I appreciate it when my Chinese and Taiwanese coworkers use their real names so I can actually find them.
For many people brought up by old school KMT teachings, their names are the Chinese characters, not how you pronounce them. You can pronounce those characters in Taigi, Hakka, Cantonese, Mandarin, even Japanese or Korean, as long as the person understands thatās how those characters are pronounced in that language, theyād feel thatās their name. Thatās why Andy Lau will always be called Liu De-hua here in Taiwan, and not Lau Tak-wah. Itās not how you pronounce it that matters, itās how you write it down. The characters carry the meaning of the name, and not the pronunciation.
To those people, the romanization of their names arenāt their names at all, especially when itās destined to be butchered. They might as well get another name that has some meaning behind it in English as their English name.