<p>I noticed this trend so much when I first came to college. Every Asian person I met would say, “my real name is ____, but I go by Esther/Sharon/Wendy/Mary, etc.” One of my friends once asked a girl we met if she liked her Chinese name or American name better - she said “why the heck would I ever pick the name Esther for myself?” The people I know who go by their Asian names have names that are easy to pronounce/spell.</p>
<p>The name Quynhgiao is like the name Sioban: when you read it for the first time, you don’t know how to pronounce it. If it is your friend’s name, you learn how to pronounce it. </p>
<p>More of my Chinese friends who are in their 40’s use American names. More of my Chinese friends who are in their 30’s use their Chinese names. We have learned how to pronounce the names, although we probably don’t always get the intonation exactly right.</p>
<p>My dh name rhymes with pingpong so it also isn’t that difficult to say/figure out but without the tones, it sounds peculiar and not like a 40-something! In China, most people call their friends by “little (insert surname)” and even his parents called him “little #3” (he was the third child) I think I was about the only person who called him by his first name. That might explain a bit of his “whatever” approach to using an anglo name. :)</p>
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<p>My son had a friend in middle school who despised the American name his parents had picked for him and insisted on always being called by his Korean name (even though his American name was nowhere near as old-fashioned as Esther). His older sister, on the other hand, used her American name exclusively. It must have been weird for the parents on occasions when they had to introduce both of their children.</p>
<p>On another note – even Asians who don’t have American names don’t necessarily go by the names on their birth certificates or nicknames related to them. One of my daughter’s Chinese friends is known to almost everyone by a Chinese nickname that has no resemblance whatsoever to her official given name.</p>
<p>My great grandfather on my dad’s side was given his American name at Ellis Island. The man filling out his paperwork(greatgranddad was illiterate) couldn’t pronounce or even understand the Swedish name, so he got a generic all- American name. My dad and his brothers gave all the male kids Swedish middle names to honor that side of the families struggle.
I do business with folks on mainland China and Chinese here in So Cal. They all insist on me using their American name. One of my Chinese customers said it makes him feel more comfortable-----and, as he told me, we tend to twist pronunciation o the name into a rude word (don’t ask me what!).</p>
<p>That’s funny, musicamusica. In German the words for night and naked sound very similar to Americans, so they often mispronounce the words to the delight of the Germans listening. With all the intonations in Chinese, it is probably very easy to say the wrong thing.</p>
<p>When I lived in France I went by the French version of my name. (Last letter is different.) And when I went in Germany my name was written the same, but pronounced differently. Germany is the only place I’ve been where my last name (German) is pronounced correctly.</p>
<p>Germans by the way have a list of approved names. As a foreigner I was allowed to deviate from the list, but we had to have a letter from the US Consulate saying that our chosen name was okay in the US. (The issue was using my last name as a middle name, very common in my family, but apparently unheard of in Germany.)</p>
<p>The first time I actually met someone who changed her name was my grad school roommate. She was Korean. Her first name in Korean wasn’t all that difficult to pronounce really. So I was a little surprised that Kate was her American name. Then later I found out her reason which was legit. Her mother had been born and raised in the US but moved to Korea, her homeland, so she wound up with some American papers anyway. I couldn’t care either way really… except that she picked out a name that also matched a couple of my friends and it just all added confusion for my mother… “Your friend Kate…” “Mom, which Kate are you talking about? You mean KATE, or KA-TIE?!” She was Korean through and through- I really didn’t think she Americanized as much as other children of immigrants I knew.</p>
<p>As for Yiddish, oh yes, there were quite a few Yiddish names that are difficult to remember and spell correctly especially with ts/tz and p/f in Hebrew alphabet.<br>
@Consolation, Bitzalael is a great one in Hebrew- it has a positive connotation, more towards something like “Good luck” :)</p>
<p>The funny thing about the historical practice of Jewish people changing their names when they came to this country in order to blend in is that so many of them changed to the same handful of names that the “American” names eventually began (for the most part) to be thought of as Jewish names themselves. Every Moshe became Morris. Almost every Isaac/Itzig became Isidor or Irving, as did almost every Israel. (My paternal grandfather, however, although born in 1887, stayed as Israel his whole life.) The Shmuels who didn’t become Sam became Sidney (Sid). Yehuda/Judah became Loew or Loeb in Germany, and Julie or Julius in the U.S., Yankel (Jacob) became Jack, the Wolfs (whose Hebrew name was usually Benjamin, because a wolf was the symbol for the tribe of Benjamin in the Bible) became William, the Bers/Baers (whose Hebrew name was usually Dov and were sometimes known as Dov-Ber) became Bernard, Chaim became Herman, Sarah became Sally, Rebecca became Betty, Itke became Ida, Reisel became Rose, and so on. And now, all of those (except for William and Jack, I think) sound like grandma and grandpa Jewish names, instead of the shiny new American names they were intended to be!</p>
<p>The same thing happened in Europe, too – most of my ancestors in Germany had three names, one Hebrew, one Yiddish, and one German. I’m sure that at least some of you have heard the old joke about the Jewish man in Poland whose name was Moshe Pisch, who moved to Germany and became Moritz Goldwasser, and then finally moved to France and became Maurice de la Fontaine.</p>
<p>Of course, I changed my first name myself to something that would fit better in my new life, but that had nothing to do with immigration (at least in the geographic sense) or with being Jewish. Fortunately, it’s close enough to my old name – I never, ever tell people anymore what that was; if they figure it out, mazel tov – that most people got used to it very quickly.</p>
<p>And, by the way, the “my name was changed at Ellis Island because they couldn’t understand or spell it” story is, basically, a giant myth. People’s names were written down on the ship passenger lists on the other side of the Atlantic. Those lists are where the immigration officials got people’s names; it wasn’t a question of people saying their names out loud and the officials not being able to understand or spell them. So if anyone’s name was changed involuntarily, it happened long before they got to Ellis Island. (In fact, however, the ship passenger lists, for the most part, do contain people’s original names, unchanged.) 99% of the name changes happened <em>after</em> people left Ellis Island, and were the immigrants’ own idea. If they told their families that it had been done for them, it was probably because they were embarrassed or ashamed that they had done it themselves.</p>
<p>My grandmother and her 9 siblings, some kept the old name, some took an Americanized name, some took the English word that their name meant in the old country. It was really interesting.</p>
<p>My DDs have many Chinese friends who have chosen American names, asn as was previously mentioned, they are often not current and common names; instead they end up with Phyllis, etc.</p>
<p>My son’s GF is Vietnamese and her name isn’t pronounced in any way how it’s spelled. So, people ALWAYS mispronounce when they don’t know any better. </p>
<p>AND…the way you are supposed to pronounce her name is the same as an American boy’s name. Very confusing for those who don’t know. </p>
<p>She has said that she will give her kids American names when she has some. </p>
<p>I remember when an Asian boy arrived at our school in the 70s. His name was spelled in a way that if pronounced that way, it would be an offensive English word. I guess the school spoke with the parents and then the next day he came to school as “John.” </p>
<p>There is a Thai restaurant by our home called Phuket…named after the Thai city. This boy’s name was very similar.</p>
<p>^^lol. Don’t want that name now, do we?</p>
<p>Mmmm…I used to know someone who was graced with the surname Fuchs. Sometimes one wonders how people survive HS! (I’ve always thought that the novelist Donna Tartt was awfully lucky that she wasn’t born in Britain. 
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<p>My own unusual surname begins with two letters that mean something that little children find highly amusing. It was certain to provoke a storm of giggling in grade school when the sub or new teacher asked me to spell my name. I survived. :)</p>
<p>Who would you picture if your 9th grade Son asked if Chatham Wallingford-Smythe* could sleep over? After speaking to Chatham’s dad on the phone and making all the arrangments, I really wish Son had given me a heads-up that I’d be opening the door to an albino Korean boy. What a great kid. We still laugh about the surprised look I had on my face. (ETA: His nickname in HS became the “Caucasian Asian.”)</p>
<p>*Name changed to protect the innocent.</p>
<p>My dad couldn’t speak English when he started school. His teachers couldn’t pronounce his name, so they called him “Ted.” (Somewhat similar to part of his birth name) He always went by Ted, and started to use “Theodore” as his full name. Finally, when he was in his 30’s, he had his name legally changed to Theodore–I heard it was because his brother died and left some money to “Theodore” and he had trouble collecting it.</p>
<p>I used to know someone who was graced with the surname Fuchs. Sometimes one wonders how people survive HS!</p>
<p>Son had a teacher with that married name…so she went by her maiden name at school.</p>
<p>Who would you picture if your 9th grade Son asked if Chatham Wallingford-Smythe could sleep over? After speaking to Chatham’s dad on the phone and making all the arrangments, I really wish Son had given me a heads-up that I’d be opening the door to an albino Korean boy. What a great kid. We still laugh about the surprised look I had on my face. (ETA: His nickname in HS became the “Caucasian Asian.”)*</p>
<p>I have 3 Asian nieces and a nephew with very Italian first and last names…I’m sure there are some raised eyebrows when they are first met. LOL</p>
<p>This thread made me think of two of my son’s friends. They’re brothers, both Japanese-American. We’ve known them since my son was 7 or 8. We’ve always known them by their Japanese names. It wasn’t until after DS had gone off to college that I learned that the boys both have American first names, like Charles and John. But they both continue to be called by their Japanese first names.</p>
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<p>Wow, I can’t imagine someone living with that name, let alone actually TAKING it voluntarily in marriage. Just wow.</p>