You could try the mayors name translated in english as How Long Bing ?
Whenever I’ve met or trained a local person whose English name was wildly inappropriate (Pizzazz, Turbo, Wisdom), or just white noise (Wooee, Shar, Easy), I tell them I’m thinking about changing my Chinese name to Bing Bam BOOM.
This often drives the point home.
Of course, if the individual is a real cock knocker, and they have an EXTRA stupid English name, often derived from a mandatory Latin character Internet login (Snowball, Tomato, Cleveland), I gladly encourage them.
The advice here is sound, check with several individuals, young and old, and see what their reaction is.
You can go to an astrologist and have the person pick the name for you. I think most Taiwanese consult some sort of astrologist or people who practice divination art before they choose a name.
I think the best thing to do is create your own Chinese name and write it any way you like. How many times have you encountered kids whose parents insist on some off the wall name, or a common name spelled completely wrong, but refuse to change it? Like “Brian” is spelled “Brain” or “Neal” is spelled “Nail”. I like to write my Chinese name and add a few lightning bolts or triangles. When people say I’ve written it incorrectly, I correct them by saying this is my name and it’s how I write it. 
I once had a student whose parents not only wanted to call her Shiny, but spelt it Shine. When I pointed out that the two are not pronounced the same way, they still insisted that Shine was in fact Shiny and that’s how her name would be pronounced. 
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]
I once had a student whose parents not only wanted to call her Shiny, but spelt it Shine. When I pointed out that the two are not pronounced the same way, they still insisted that Shine was in fact Shiny and that’s how her name would be pronounced. 
[/quote]
So that’s how you keep customers. I don’t allow my kids to have any name that is not accepted as an official name unless their parents are hippies. Unlikely here.
I show them translation of the word they want to use for a name and ask them if that would be an acceptable name in Chinese. Will also tell them that they will be laughed at in the out-side world. What do the parents of your students say when you tell them the truth. I bet they don’t understand your English and that they don’t really think you know better.
I also let my student know about the nick names of names like Jennifer, Jenny and Jen.
Back to Chinese… keep a conservative name. I think Fortunetellers don’t usually give names, I think they approve names. When my children were named… Grandpa came up with some names, consulted his almanac. Then they went to a seer and the names were approved.
I once had a student whose parents not only wanted to call her Shiny, but spelt it Shine. When I pointed out that the two are not pronounced the same way, they still insisted that Shine was in fact Shiny and that’s how her name would be pronounced. [/quote]
I had a student several years ago called Code (pronounced Cody). No amount of reason could convince them otherwise, so I continued to called him Code, pronounced Code. When asked why I kept doing that I said that I couldn’t in good conscience mispronounce the name, especially seeing as how we’re expected to teach them correct use of phonics (itc, O_E - Oh, silent “e”).
Still, the 12 year old girl I had who was called Satan and who knew what it meant) still takes the cake.
My name’s Natasha. Or… as my Catholic school classmate’s pointed out…
‘Ah… Satan’ backwards.
[quote=“Taiwan_Student”][quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]
I once had a student whose parents not only wanted to call her Shiny, but spelt it Shine. When I pointed out that the two are not pronounced the same way, they still insisted that Shine was in fact Shiny and that’s how her name would be pronounced. [/quote]
So that’s how you keep customers. I don’t allow my kids to have any name that is not accepted as an official name unless their parents are hippies. Unlikely here.[/quote]
This was during the brief time I worked at Hess Evil Organization. There, the parents are always right, even when they’re wrong. One time, my supervisor complained that I wasn’t writing enough in the communication books with the parents and that I needed to follow the Hess “sandwich method”. I pointed out that I was indeed following their method (precisely so I wouldn’t have such a stupid conversation). My supervisor said I needed to fill the box, so maybe I should write bigger and space out my words more. Seriously. Same number of words, just bigger so they would fill the box to keep everyone happy and look like I was writing a lot. Fucking crazy people!
Bismarck: Haha. Satan. That’s fantastic. The two best ones I’ve had are Alien (which I think was meant to be Allen) and Full Body Power, which sounds like a bodybuilding supplement. None of my current students are allowed to have stupid names. I had a “Monkey” at the start of this job, but I told him in no uncertain terms that he was not Monkey and I was not going to call him Monkey. Where necessary, I give kids names. I try to make them as similar to their Chinese names as I can (or at least have the first syllable of their English name be similar to their first given name in Chinese), though not always.
[quote=“tsukinodeynatsu”]My name’s Natasha. Or… as my Catholic school classmate’s pointed out…
‘Ah… Satan’ backwards.[/quote]
Hmmm… 
There was a foreign girl in Tainan who told me that one a few years ago. Coincidence, or small world?
What are they? :eh:
I have a Taiwanese friend whose name is 陳純真, and her English name is Jen. Not bad eh?
I’ve always liked the cinematographer Chris Doyle’s Chinese name, 杜可風 
.
[quote=“Petrichor”][quote=“Taiwan_Student”]
I also let my student know about the nick names of names like Jennifer, Jenny and Jen.
[/quote]
What are they? :eh:[/quote]
Presumably Taiwan_Student meant that Jenny and Jen are nicknames (I think diminutive is actually what’s meant) of Jennifer.
I was hired before setting foot in Taiwan. So the school admin system could deal with the paperwork, I was assigned a Chinese name. No one consulted me about it and no one has thought to ask if I’m happy with it. It was about a month before I could recognise it on documents and only now can I write it (badly).
I don’t see any point in changing it. I’m not attached to it and if I did mess with it, my salary could get delayed or my schedule screwed up. And it’s a bit more interesting than my bland bland bland Anglo-Saxon name.
You have an Anglo-Saxon name? (Often they’re derived from earlier Germanic names.) Most are actually pretty interesting.
Here’s a list of some Anglo-Saxon names: behindthename.com/nmc/eng-anci.php
[quote=“bismarck”][quote=“tsukinodeynatsu”]My name’s Natasha. Or… as my Catholic school classmate’s pointed out…
‘Ah… Satan’ backwards.[/quote]
Hmmm… There was a foreign girl in Tainan who told me that one a few years ago. Coincidence, or small world?[/quote]
Hmmm… probably small world, I don’t know any other foreign Natasha in Tainan! It’s not a story I bring up a lot though. Was she short and English?
[quote=“Petrichor”][quote=“Taiwan_Student”]
I also let my student know about the nick names of names like Jennifer, Jenny and Jen.
[/quote]
What are they? :eh:[/quote]
Elizabeth, Lizzy, Betsy and Bess,
They all went together to seek a bird’s nest
They found a bird’s nest with five eggs in,
If they all took one out,
How many are in?
If you can answer that riddle, you understand the English nickname or diminutive system. I also encourage older students to consider adapting they’re “formal” name instead of the child like name for official documents or ceremonies. “Cynthia” for “Cindy”, “James” for “Jimmy”. Those are not too bad, but I’ve had some really kiddie names that escaped my memory right now. I’m senile.
You know… the kids don’t have to have an English name. Several people I knew in the US just anglicized their Chinese names by ditching the tones and changing the sound a bit so the local people can pronounce them. What’s wrong with a Chinese name?
Well, if that’s the case, then tsukinodeynatsu should actually change her name to Natalia/Natalya (or the Anglicised form Natalie), since Natasha is actually the diminutive of Natalia. Additonally, and I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to learn this, Natasha is the slang word for prostitute in Turkey on account of all the Russian, Ukranian and other former Soviet working girls there.
On the point of taking the diminutive, Jesus is actually a contraction of Joshua.
A little more trivia. The reason names like Bob, Ned, Ted, Peggy are the diminutive forms of Robert, Edward (Ned and Ted) and Margaret, respectively, is because in many medieval villages, there would be several people with the same name so to distinguish them, they were given diminutives that rhymed with the more obvious diminutives. Thus, Robert became Rob, Bob, Hob, Nob (though these last two and others have basically disappeared, though Nobby is used very occasionally), Edward became Ed, Ned, Ted, and Margaret became Meggy and Peggy.
Reading any Russian novel, it can be quite difficult at times to keep track of the diminutives, especially since sometimes people will also be called by the diminutive of their middle name (patronymic name – which is derived from their father’s first name), meaning that several characters in the same family will have very similar diminutives, and often (just to confuse things even more) be called by several variations thereof.
[quote=“Taiwan_Student”][quote=“Petrichor”][quote=“Taiwan_Student”]
I also let my student know about the nick names of names like Jennifer, Jenny and Jen.
[/quote]
What are they? :eh:[/quote]
Elizabeth, Lizzy, Betsy and Bess,
They all went together to seek a bird’s nest
They found a bird’s nest with five eggs in,
If they all took one out,
How many are in?
If you can answer that riddle, you understand the English nickname or diminutive system. I also encourage older students to consider adapting they’re “formal” name instead of the child like name for official documents or ceremonies. “Cynthia” for “Cindy”, “James” for “Jimmy”. Those are not too bad, but I’ve had some really kiddie names that escaped my memory right now. I’m senile.
You know… the kids don’t have to have an English name. Several people I knew in the US just anglicized their Chinese names by ditching the tones and changing the sound a bit so the local people can pronounce them. What’s wrong with a Chinese name?[/quote]
Oh, I get you now. I thought there were some rude variations on Jenny that I wasn’t aware of. Isn’t Jen is just a shortened version of a name, rather than a nickname?
I don’t understand why people are bothered by this - e.g. trying to think of children’s names that can’t be shortened or tersely stating their name is JonATHON, not John. Who cares, as long as everyone knows who you mean? My name can be shortened but I don’t mind what I’m called, as long as it’s something vaguely similar to the real thing, and not too abusive. 
“It starts off as Nicole. Then it becomes Nicky and …”
A Mandarin name can be useful. But getting something like “Ma-ke” for “Mark” is worse than having none at all.
Also, try to make sure you are consistent in how your name is used by all your employers. Someone at the labor bureau recently reviewed my account and found all sorts of variations (e.g., given name + first two letters of my family name, given name + first two letters of my middle name, first x-many letters of my family name). This sort of thing matters a lot when it comes to collecting retirement pensions. I would have been missing several years worth of money my employers and I had put into the system if that woman – bless her – hadn’t worked to track down and unify those accounts. (As it is, I’m still missing a few years – but that is, in part, due to the bookkeeping practices of certain employers that really ought to know better. :fume: )