We hear from Money, Curtis, Hydie and Josephia, who tell us how they got their strange names (although "Curtis" is not a weird name!). Also glad to see this journalist authenticates many of these names and qualifies them as real people (just like this blog does by only accepting names that come from credible sources). Well done Blundy!
About Novel HKSAR Names
see also:
Hong Kong Loves Weird English Names
Reference: SCMP article
iPhone, Cola and Kinky: what’s in a Hong Kongers name?
Trend for Hongkongers choosing unusual English names continues as they compete to find most original one
PUBLISHED : Monday, 07 March, 2016, 10:56pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 08 March, 2016, 3:10pm
Soufflé, Arial, Focus, Hippo and
Kinky. They might sound like the members of an avant-garde electro-pop
band, but in fact they are just some of the more unusual names that
Hongkongers are going by in 2016.
So why are quirky names so popular in
Hong Kong and how do we explain their evolution? Post-colonial British
influences mean most Hongkongers have an English name that they commonly
use at work or amongst friends, while at home they will often answer to
their Chinese name or nickname.
The tradition seems to vary according
to a person’s class. Upper-class and Western-educated parents typically
give their children English names at birth or soon after. Some Chinese
parents pay feng shui masters up to HK$25,000 to come up with an
original name for their child based on factors such as the time of their
birth and characteristics they want their kids to have later in life.
Feng shui dates as far back as 4000 BC in China. It remained popular in
Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1960s while being pushed out of China during
the Cultural Revolution. It has since regained popularity in Hong Kong.
It is sometimes used to choose a new name for a child later in life if a
family believes they are suffering from cosmic problems, i.e. bad luck.
Louis Wong, a third generation
feng shui practitioner at Sky Fortune in Causeway Bay, says he provides
parents with up to 30 names to choose from for their child. He compiles
the shortlist by trying to create what he describes as “balanced” names
using the five Chinese Taoist elements (fire, earth, metal, water and
wood); the number of strokes in a child’s written Chinese name and the
pronunciation of each Chinese character. “Most of our customers are
quite satisfied with these 30 names because they have a lot to choose
from. I also show them the name selection method.
Sometimes parents have quite different ideas on what to use – such as including the concept of the sky – but we tell them it is not a stable name choice in Chinese culture. We give them our advice and if they insist on using their own name then that is their decision,” he says.
Sometimes parents have quite different ideas on what to use – such as including the concept of the sky – but we tell them it is not a stable name choice in Chinese culture. We give them our advice and if they insist on using their own name then that is their decision,” he says.
“People in Hong Kong are trying to assert their individuality. It is a bit like when you choose clothes - you are making a statement of sorts.” Joseph Bosco, associate professor of cultural anthropology at the Chinese University
In contrast, working-class children may
be given a name later out of necessity at school. They might choose
their own name or be given one by their teacher. This might be one
reason why some children have ended up with rather arbitrary names, such
as Rainbow.
But there’s no hard and fast rule for
how Hongkongers acquire their English name, as SCMP journalist and
Hongkonger Laura Ma explains: “I was named after Laura Ingalls Wilder,
the American author who wrote ‘Little House on the Prairie’, because I
liked it as a child, but I wasn’t given that name until I was eight
years old - about six months after I moved to Canada. I’d already been
registered as Yan-yi at school, so I continued using this name while I
lived in Canada. It wasn’t until I moved back to Hong Kong almost four
years ago that by chance ‘Laura’ became my name after I included it as
my middle name on my Hong Kong University journalism masters
registration.”
Meanwhile, at home, some Hongkongers might go by a name which denotes their position in a family. “In a Chinese household, my parents never used my English or Chinese name anyway since we refer to each other by our relation,” Ma says. “Being the eldest, my parents just called me ‘big sister’ (in Chinese) and only used my full Chinese name when I was in trouble.”
For some, a less conventional name is
undoubtedly a way of marking themselves out from the crowd. Young
Hongkongers in particular seem to be embracing the freedom to take on a
new persona through their adopted English name.
Joseph Bosco at Chinese University
thinks these names demonstrate Hongkongers expressing their uniqueness,
rather than them making a post-colonial political statement.
“It is a bit like when you choose
clothes,” he says. “You are making a statement of sorts – but it is not a
political one, at least not a conscious one. People in Hong Kong are
trying to assert their individuality. A lot of Chinese people want to
make their name sound different – a lot of them have similar surnames
too so it becomes more necessary to have a different first name. And
many Chinese students do not feel there is a problem with changing
certain letters in a name.”
But unlike in the US and UK, where weird and wonderful names are given to children by their often pretentious parents, Hong Kong names are being concocted by the children themselves.
“My students sometimes ask me why
I have such a boring name,” says John Carroll, professor of Hong Kong
history at Hong Kong University. “I think people want names that are
unusual. People want to differentiate themselves. They can be creative
with their names – but they’re not often on their Hong Kong ID cards,
which can be confusing when they enroll here.”
Some Hongkongers even decide to change their adopted English names later in life, just because they feel like it. Professor Carroll says: “When I arrived here in the 1960s, I noticed people had unusual names and I had friends who would just change them – I knew a Dickie who changed his name to Norbert and a Stephen who substituted the ‘S’ in his name with a ‘Z’.”
This somewhat playful approach to the
naming process extends to using English nouns which would never
traditionally be adopted as names in Western cultures. “Cola”, “Fish”
and “Orange” are just some recent examples of this in Hong Kong’s
schools. The trend suggests children are simply choosing objects they
identify with or words they like the sound of when selecting their name.
But again, unlike when Western parents deliberately select alternative
names in order to be perceived as “edgy” (Chris Martin and Gwyneth
Paltrow’s decision to call their daughter “Apple” springs to mind),
young Hongkongers on the whole seem to choose these names in an
unassuming way.
Whilst this desire for uniqueness might
not be a new phenomenon, there are certainly some names, such as
iPhone, which have only come into usage since the turn of the 21st
century.
Bosco further attributes this to Hongkongers striving for individuality.
“This shows the cultural meanings of
names can be very different in different cultural contexts. In a sense
people here are following Chinese rule, but they want an English name
which marks them out as unique,” he says.
Four Hongkongers tell us how they got their names
English name: Money Chin
Chinese name: 錢梓峰
Age: 23
Profession/university: Insurance agent
What’s the story behind your English name?:
I chose my name because my surname in Chinese means ‘money’ – so
together it translates as ‘Money Money’. I think by using an unusual
English name, it’s more likely we’ll be remembered by people when we
first meet them. It makes us unique and special - which is how most
Hongkongers want to be thought of in their daily life.
English name: Curtis Li
Chinese name: 李政澔
Age: 20
Profession/Education: Student at New York University
What’s the story behind your English name?: Curtis comes from the word ‘courteous’. It is also a soft rhyme with my dad’s name, Ernest.
English name: Hydie Chan
Chinese name: 陳晞
Age: 31
Profession/Education: Primary school teacher
What’s the story behind your English name?:
Hydie is originally a French boy’s name. It is pronounced as ‘hei di’,
very similar to my Chinese name. My parents felt it was special so they
chose it for name. I use it on my Hong Kong ID card.
Name: Josephia Feng Jing
Chinese name: 冯静
Age: 26
Profession: banker at Deutsche Bank
What’s the story behind your English name?:
I got my name Josephia from my first English teacher – a 70-year-old
from Mississippi, America. He thought it should start with the same
letter as my given Chinese name, which is Jing, so he thought of
Josephia. I was growing up in Wuxi, eastern China, aged about seven or
eight when he gave me my name.
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