What's in a name?

It’s a popular trend for the Chinese to adopt Western ‘names’.  All of our students and local staff have these; the majority were given to them by their parents, others have been plucked from obscurity/internet name lists.  Although some names may be weird and wonderful, I have to admit, it makes life a whole lot easier than struggling to pronounce Chinese names, and perfect the tones so you don’t unintentionally call someone something obscene.

I’ve categorised a selection below, so you can see just what we’re dealing with:

Cartoon characters – Dora, Jerry, Minnie.

Colours – Black, White.

Film stars – Angelina, Harrison.

Nonsense names – Cherney, Gogo, Kison, Ticko, Turing, Wydia, Yamor.

Random nouns – Apple, Cherry, Flower, Mountain, Queen, Spring, Tear, Tiger, Yoyo.

Stripper names– Angel, Candy, Cindy, Kitty.

Unusual/names with connotations – Ivan, Lucky, Malboro, Dick, Johnson.

A xx