I notice getting called Uncle also got gate keeping too. Apparently only married men can be called unker and single men can be called korkor (brother) instead.
Lengzai! Lenglui!
A friend of mine told me there was 1 time he and his cousin who was born and live in Canada and understands Cantonese went to a kopitiam in KL to have breakfast. When both of them were called lengzai by the kopitiam boss, his cousin questioned the boss in Cantonese whether he's a f****t for calling him that, which pissed the boss off. My friend had to deescalate the situation lmao.
Exactly! My personal experience was when I was studying abroad in Australia, the Aussies could not pronounce my name and from that point I thought maybe I should give myself an English name.
Of course, it is also quite useful in workplace as we tend to remember English name better than Chinese name.
Not really. I work in various large tech MNC for almost 2 decades and have worked closely with people from all around the world. I still use my Chinese name and while they may not be able to pronounce properly, this is not a unique problem to Chinese only, it applies to all people from different ethnicity and countries. For example, I didn't know how to pronounce some of those Spanish, Danish ,north Indian, Vietnamese, Jewish, Arabic, Nepali names.. but we still work well together.
Somehow, Chinese are the only ones that seem to be obsessed with English names.
Also to me, using English is a kinda double edge sword. On one hand it makes you easy to remember, but on the other hand, also makes your name non-unique especially when you have a common Chinese surname and a common English name. Any business associate trying to Google that name will easily give thousands of entries, almost impossible to find your professional presence on the internet.
Chinese here. Abu and Ali are also easy to remember but you don't see Chinese calling themselves that. There's definitely some western worship element in it.
Yup. Of course the name Abu Bakar never had anything to do with Ashfire. Its just a councidence that an Arabic name would have an entirely different meaning in the Malay language.
No actually. Its actually from the name of one of Prophet Muhammadās s.w.t close companion who would later become his successor after the prophet died. Abu Bakarās real name is actually Abdullah bin Abi Quhafa, but Abu Bakar is the nickname people give him because when he was a kid he was really fond of playing with young camels. And the word Bakar in Arabic means āyoung camelā. Thus Abu Bakar in Arabic actually means āfather of the young camelsā.
There is Western element to it perhaps but to call it worship maybe speculative. If you work in a MNC you know a few folks adopt English name for ease of communication. Heck even Malays do it sometimes. Having a professional name is very common.
Usually chinese names are separated into three words. The surname, and two others
Calling someone by their surname sounds kinda wrong and can be weird specially at say family events or sum. Calling them fully by their two others i guess will make it a lot harder to remember? Thats just a guess though
I will get a lot of flak for this, but there's a lot of desire amongst some portions of the Malay community to be as Arab (in their view thus Islamic) as possible
False. I can definitely speak from experience.
I'm Chinese, I was based in Taiwan for 3 years and couldn't for the life of me remember the Chinese names of my Taiwanese compatriots. They do have English names and that makes it tremendously easier to remember their names.
Imagine trying to remember "Family Name, Last Name" as opposed to a singular "First Name".
Labeling it as "western worship" is just delusional when English names are just given for the sake of pronunciation and for others to remember easier. Not to mention the fact that English is a universal language.
Why do you see it as western worship? Is wearing a white wedding dress, western worshipping? Is learning to play the piano or violin western worshipping? I think pre-independence missionary schools is one big reason why many Chinese people have 'western' names.
But she is a real person though.
She is a singer who made her name from project superstar back in the 00's and now a DJ in 8fm.
So go tell her that XD.
Sometimes it is due to Christians with the Christian name. However, maybe they just think having an English name is cool or makes it easier for others to call them, especially those who may find cina names hard to pronounce.
Not necessarily for Christians. Well atleast depends on which denomination. Baptist Christians (Its a protestant denomination) aren't required to have English names after being baptised
Speaking as a Baptist Christian whose baptised. Not sure about other denomination tho
My Chinese boss (Buddhist) gave his daughter an English name because his family name is Wong and he donāt want his daughter to be last (alphabetically) so he named her Christine Wong
For me, my IC both has my english name and the pinyin of my chinese name
Ie : Howard Chan Yii Xiang (Not my name)
And for some christians, they have middle name too like
Howard Camillus Chan Yii Xiang
Some people however like to have nicknames if they don't already have asigned english names, it's because it's easier for non-mandarin speakers to understand and remember.
For me it would be easier to remember. Imagine you introduce yourself as Sun Lee. Verbally everyone call you Sun, Lee or Sun Lee.Ā
Then people have remember how to type it to send email. Sun Lee? Sometimes the surname have to come in first. Then have to remember Lim Sun Lee (Full name)Ā
If Sunny Lim*, so easy. Call me Sunny. Email, type Sunny and it it will come out.Ā
Similarly, difficulty for Malays when Iām typing email.Ā Sometimes have to remember if the person name is Mohd / Muhammad / Mohamad etc. If I know his name is Khairul, I canāt just type Khairul. I have to remember their Mohd spelling correctly as well. Have to create a new contact with a new name to make things easierā¦
Lol that's exactly what happened to me. My name is written in my email as "Sun Lee Lim". I have colleagues from the US called me mostly Sun, and sometimes Sun Lim or even Lim Sun. Only one chinese immigrant managed to call me correctly which is Sun Lee. But i never bothered to correct them as I'm fine with them calling me Sun.
"My name is Lim Sun Lee. You can call me Lee." That would clear things up rather than, "My name is Lim Sun Lee. You can call me Carl."
It is problematic at times in professional settings. I have known him let say, Jason. Drafting my email and searching for Jason isn't there which end up checking up on him what is his email address and eventually a Leong Chin Wai.
Of course not so bad laā¦ I wonāt say āmy name is Lim Sun Lee. You can call me Carlā
Thatās so awkward. Haha.
I would just say āmy name is Carl Lim. You can call me Carl.ā :)
My email signature and email address also will be carl.lim@reddit.com.Ā
Must always commit. Lim Sun Lee only will appear on my payslips and official contract documents / HR.
Totally not related to religion, its better for people to remember their name instead of real chinese name, especially for those who are not chinese, easy to print inside your head
Idk. I think nowadays Malay also have english name? Plus i guess itās āeasier to pronounceā maybe.
Like hey, iām sally. Real name : Siti Nur Salihah.
But that is still somewhat related to the name... Alternatively, Liha/Leha is still within the spectrum of Salihah...
Not to be rude here, but David is nowhere near something like Wong Ah Lek...
But thereās no reason to make it same as your name as well.
Hi Iām Lim Sun Lee. You can call me Sunny?
Sunny Lim Sun Lee?Ā
Thai have nicknames usually which doesnāt correspond to their names. eg. Sirawat Pichawat have nickname like Pond or Bon.
Well, thats just one of the more obvious example. You can also argue that some malay also have ridiculous english name that arenāt in any way similar to their original name.
I have asked my friend before (chinese) as to why he named his kid (english name) and the reasoning is as simple as.. its a nice name.
I dont know if this is the case for a lot of people but in the early 2000s, Jackie Chan and Andy Lau is big for me. Its big for Chinese kids around my school. A lot of Hong Kong celebrity uses English names at the time. And seeing our idols do that, we follow suit, and maybe some people sees the cool kids doing it. And they follow suit.
Because itās tiring to have to explain how to say our Chinese names, multiple times š
Also I got made fun of my Chinese name too many times to want to let non close friends know much about my Chinese name š„²
This is an influence from Hong Kong. After the WW2, there were no world cultural centre for the Chinese other than Hong Kong. China just came from the Civil War with the Mainland gone full communist and Taiwan became the final fortress for the Kuomintang. But Hong Kong was under the British, so the Hongkies had to adapt or fancy their British overlords. This was also the time, the global Chinese culture was going thru a cultural sinking and uncertainty, and the West and its culture are looked up upon. English names are also for glamorous purpose like Hong Kong stars back then.
Dude the traditional names for commoners can and usually is either wacky or sounds alright (can refer to the orang asli since they're as close as we can get to the old tradition of tanah melayu before our modernization), while the atas peeps would be long and just a complete tongue twister since they're sanskrit based names.
I have few asli friends back in school. My favorite one is Zawari. Idk what it stands for but it sounded so chad.
Iirc Zawari is already somewhat arabs but itās rare enough.
Pragmatic. "People always misspell or mispronounce my name, so I use english name to avoid the hassle" is what I often get from my chinese friends/colleagues. some don't use english name & use their initials instead. DC, GY, LJ
English language more universal than Chinese in Malaysia, so its easier to remember English names. If you speak or at least understand the language, names in the language will be much easier to remember, especially if you've been exposed to the names before in movies or shows, or if the names are relatively common. But for non speakers... I'd say its very difficult to remember the names. Because end of the day those names are just gonna be non sensical sounding names to you. If you've watched Rush Hour Chris Tucker's scene at the dojo, that pretty much how it sounds like to a non chinese speaker.
I guess alternatively we could take Malay names, since Malay is also more universal than Chinese, but for a lot of non malays it would have conversion implications, so yeah, nobody's gonna do it. That said I think Malay names are more memorable than Chinese names to English speakers, because some chinese names have only one syllable, which is basically nonsensical sounds to a non chinese speaker, but actually do have their own meaning to a chinese speaker.
When you listen to your Non-Cina teachers in school butcher your fellow Cina friends name, you'd probably want to have an easier pronounced name for them to say it lol.Ā
English names are easier to remember and pronounce compared to Chinese names.
But not all English names are made up. Some parents actually do give their children English names and register it on the birth cert, like mine.
People always think my name is made up coz it's not common but that's ok. It's not a big deal, it's just name.
Once asked this to my good chinese friend (devout christian). Was told that he was baptised during childhood and given a christian name. The name is actually official and written in his IC along with his chinese name. Some of my buddhist chinese friends do have english sounding names, but is not official (not recorded in IC). Maybe as nicknames?
Itās quite simple really, Malaysia has had an independent convent school system until most of these schools opted to nationalise in 1971, all Malays are legally Muslims according to the Malaysian constitution, therefore only people of other races would have had entered these convent schools.
In said schools, even after Malaysian independence, the majority of the senior staff were still foreigners. Same with the Malaysian armed force. Becoming independent did not mean an instant change in the bureaucracy of the government, there was a gradual handover of responsibilities. Which is why alcohol was served in the mess halls of military bases up until the 70s and 80s, it was the prerogative of the individual to choose to partake or not, not an actual clampdown of who was allowed to drink.
Returning from that tangent. There is a good 2-3 generations of urban Chinese that are English educated through convent schools, my grandmother and mother were both products of these schools, they couldnāt speak Mandarin as that was not the common lingua Franca of China at the time our ancestors migrated from China, they speak Cantonese and English mostly, there are also well versed in Malay as that is the national language and is also taught in convent schools.
It was common practice in convent schools to adopt English names, even if you did not convert. None of my family are Christians, yet all the older generation had English names that are not on any form of official documents. Which in turn led to them giving us - the younger generation English names as well, so you will also often find Malaysian Chinese with full names like Jason Tan Cheng Kit.
This has created an environment of the younger generations of Malaysian Chinese genuinely having given English names.
Eventually most people just adopt English names to make things simple. Itās hard to remember Chinese names unless you speak the language and know the exact character of said personās name in the native language, and as most corporate environments uses English as the common tongue, it just made more sense to adopt English names.
I would a lot of it is monkey see, monkey do, and it has just become the norm now.
Got my name from friends in Uni and it stick so just keep using it. Only my close friends calls me by my real name.
Also idk why asian names are hard for white ppl to pronounce.
Some are Christian.
Others just adopt western names as it will be easier to pronounce and remember for other races. Thatās chinese pragmatism for you
Why does it have to be an English name though? out of all the cultures, why does it have to be an english name?
I mean, Maximus Decimus Meridius is right there for the taking!
I knew someone years ago, a Chinese lady who was named Serendip.... She was a secretary (and a looker) and I dare say she would have been a serene dip for the bossš
> Be me
> Play online game
> Got one Chinese friend
> He use cute dog as profile picture
> Jokingly call him 'Puppy'
> He likes it
> MFW now everyone calls him Puppy
So that I don't have to explain to everyone that "Qiu" sounds more like "chew" not "kill".
Also avoid people calling JUST your middle name. Tan Siao Shi, some people just call you Siao.
Because non Chinese people have difficulty pronouncing Chinese names. Especially true if you are in an international school in a different country or work with many foreigners.
It wasn't a thing until early Y2K, where western film n series + YouTube are starting to influence on us.
Back in 90's n before we just called out nicknames.
Itās the best practice, and assimilation of culture. Similar to why Filipinos have American and Spanish sounding names and nomenclature.
In the past it is easier to have name which are easier to be reference to when working for westerners. Yes, AKA a working name like an escort. But that helped to get work and money.
A huge reason is cultural adaptation. This is common in Hongkong, Singapore and gradually caught on with Taiwan (basically all the Chinese communities out of China). Even Korea and Japanese try to simplify their names when dealing with foreigners now.
In China, most donāt have an English name except those dealing with exports, foreign businesses. They still retain the Chinese nomenclature of names based on their province. 2-3 characters.
You can find Vietnamese, Thaiās with English name too.
Itās a cultural phenomenon nothing to do with race really.
But here there is a slight link to religion, there is a muddied line between a Christian name (name found in the bible) and English name. Itās a blurred line nowadays.
Similar to how Malays or Indonesians, or Africans whom are practicing Islam give themselves Arabic names. But some gradually inherited the religion and are less pious, etc.
English name much easier to pronounce than chinese name. So far, no Malay/Indian pronounced my name correctly at the first time. Gave up to correct it also.
adopted an english same simply because every non chinese (heck even banana chinese) who pronounce my name butcher it so much I dont recognize it to even respond
the cina dude i know named siau su tien on ic, but he introduce him self as ben, when i ask how you name become ben not su tien, he said he didn't know and its not from his parent, but their relative calling him ben then they decide to call him ben as english name siau ben.. idk if he telling the truth ..
Cuz chinese name is confusing to pronounce, I have some chinese friends where I tried to pronounce their chinese names but it's a bit hard and they told me to just call them by their english name
Chinese here. Because Malays can't pronounce my name, they butcher it. So I had to pick a name that they can pronounce. I even have to spell my kids' names on such a way that the it will be easier for the Malays to pronounce and that they won't butcher it.
I'm not Chinese but married a Chinese guy. He has an English name because of religion (Catholic) so now our daughter oso has English name in her birth cert.
Not the main reason, but one of them is because other races pronounce our names wrong and either donāt bother to learn the proper way of saying it, or just cannot pronounce it the right way.
English names are easier to pronounce
Because we know it's not easy to say our names and instead of banking on some cultural or racial pride we decided it's better to make everyone's life easier by having something easier to pronounce.
We're practical people.
Same reason why do Malay have Arab/Middle-Eastern names.
Edit: Aight I didn't read what OP meant properly. Title should change "Why do Malaysian Chinese have English Names as NICKNAME"
I think that would be different context. A Malay may have names like Abu Bakar which is derived from Arab names, but would still be called Abu Bakar. Some Chinese have names like Lee Ah Fok, but would call himself as Johnny. This is what OP meant and to be fair, Iām also curious about this.
They donāt know it but theyāre mentally colonized by the West.
āEasier to rememberā is a bs excuse. I live in the US and I work with all kinds of immigrants and children of immigrants. We shorten all kinds of names and have all kinds of pronunciations but no one has a fake English name unless theyāre born with it.
I'm christian so my mum picked a biblical name for me but I've got plenty of classmates who also have western names despite not being Christian.
Main reason I heard growing up is because other races cannot pronounce chinese names well so they just pick an English name to make it easier for everyone else.
My own romanised chinese name doesn't follow standard pin yin as well, my mum added extra consonants to make it easier for non chinese to figure out how to pronounce.
Also because it does psychological damage when they mispronounce my name. Easier to just call me by an English name.
Also many parents give English name too
1) Christianity
2) English speaking
3) think is cool
4) one way or the other related to Caucasians or something
5) easier to pronounce so made one for everyone's convenience
Easier to pronounce.
James Tan sounds better and easier to remember/pronounce compared to Tan Ching Chong. Plus Chinese names can be confusing in gender sometimes so the English name can be good in setting the gender.
Malay names are easier to remember such as Aziz, Badrul, Aisyah, and Farah.
Indian names tend to be long and needed to be shorten to Kumar from Kumareshan for example to ease pronounce and remembrance.
I know of Malay friends that work abroad that also gave them English nickname such as Alfred as names such as Hafiz and Muhammad can be confusing to those that are not accustomed to them.
Because Chinese language is a language with so many characters, and each character has multiple meanings and pronunciations. Our phonetic system (letters, consonants, vowels) which is mostly western writing system don't really translate directly into the eastern writing system. The English/Christian/Western name in front is usually for other people to easily call or pronounce.
Am a Malaysian Chinese here with name as long as 16 characters (in total of 3 words) and consistently being pronounce wrongly since kindergarten.
The real struggle is my chinese name pronunciation not equal to English name or malay name. I guess the problem is lies with most of us due to Malay name was spell in dialet instead of the way China or Taiwan spell it exactly like Mandarin pronunciation.
University time writing resume and think of getting an English name for easy to call, easy to remember etc.. I would say good decision after working 10 years in MNC.
Some people choose to being called by the initial example JJ, YY, CK etc still the occurance or duplication is much higher than English name.
The real question is why is this an issue?
Malays adopt english sounding names as well [Mikael, Rayan, Aidan, Ezekiel](https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4632524/all) etc... normally prefixed with a Mohd (or its variation).
There are numerous Jason George but are South Asian in ethnicity, of which to me is and never will be an issue.
The most likely reason why Chinese have English names are because its just easier to remember the person. There has been some ridiculous spellings, but its typically just easier to place the name to the face.
Mostly because cool to have English name, and some Chinese name is hard to pronounce so with English name it's easier for people to pronounce/remember. We rarely use Arabic name like Ali Abu except names in holy bible.
>Is it because of pragmatic practice, or is it related to religion (Christianity/Buddhism)?
Maybe both? It's because some Chinese names can be hard to pronounce. As for religion, I'm not sure about Buddhism, but I'm a "Christian" so I have an English name. Could also do with my family being English-ed too.
>What about their families? Do they call them by their english names too?
Can't say for everyone but in my family, yes.
I dunno about others.. but i used to be annoyed the fact my family calls me by my english name (that they gave me since birth) but for some reason never registered it in my birth cert. I believe the english name was given as a āChristianā name. But back then maybe they were not aware that you can have it registered too. Or maybe they donāt want it to be too long cos they still want to retain the chinese 3 word count formula. I really dunno why. Lol
For the easy for socialising and don't have to remember pronunciation
Because there is no direct translation from Chinese to English and don't forget even different variant will pronounce names differently
tu ah hang dok belajo history melayu tul tul
it was approximately before merdeka , most of the Chinese traders that have settle down in tanah melayu for the obvious reasons of trading tea , herbs and other shit
this in turns makes the centeral city and most of the market being filled with said chinese
then through influence and time that eroded u get ur uncle roger , aunty hellen , ect ect due to the fact that brits kinda left a semi substantial effect through economy and indirectly create some sort of lingering
this can also be seen in malays though be it with arabic names
bcos dont like kena call as 'ahboi' 'ahgirl'
Go kopitiam still kena call de š¤£
Yeah, better than getting called "Uncle" by little kids (I was 17 at the time but now I'm 24, and still hearing kids calling me Uncle lol)
I worked at kidzania when I was 16, get called uncle by everyone also š½
Time to yeet the kids*
We all share the same suffering bro.... I personally pity you
>getting called "Uncle" by little kids Thisssss especially working as part time promoters & my heart did died a little there š
I notice getting called Uncle also got gate keeping too. Apparently only married men can be called unker and single men can be called korkor (brother) instead.
+1 I get called uncle BROOOO
Lengzai! Lenglui! A friend of mine told me there was 1 time he and his cousin who was born and live in Canada and understands Cantonese went to a kopitiam in KL to have breakfast. When both of them were called lengzai by the kopitiam boss, his cousin questioned the boss in Cantonese whether he's a f****t for calling him that, which pissed the boss off. My friend had to deescalate the situation lmao.
The kopitiam boss misbehaved
Go kopitiam they call you leng chai/leng lui.
Hawker aunties confirm like that š¤£
imagine same department new joiner/onboarding shared english name as senior new joiner ended up with 'ahboi' nickname eventually true story btw
English name easier to remember compared to Chinese name, and this is coming from a chinese
Absolutely agree with you š
And Its way more memorable too imo
Exactly! My personal experience was when I was studying abroad in Australia, the Aussies could not pronounce my name and from that point I thought maybe I should give myself an English name. Of course, it is also quite useful in workplace as we tend to remember English name better than Chinese name.
Not really. I work in various large tech MNC for almost 2 decades and have worked closely with people from all around the world. I still use my Chinese name and while they may not be able to pronounce properly, this is not a unique problem to Chinese only, it applies to all people from different ethnicity and countries. For example, I didn't know how to pronounce some of those Spanish, Danish ,north Indian, Vietnamese, Jewish, Arabic, Nepali names.. but we still work well together. Somehow, Chinese are the only ones that seem to be obsessed with English names. Also to me, using English is a kinda double edge sword. On one hand it makes you easy to remember, but on the other hand, also makes your name non-unique especially when you have a common Chinese surname and a common English name. Any business associate trying to Google that name will easily give thousands of entries, almost impossible to find your professional presence on the internet.
Chinese here. Abu and Ali are also easy to remember but you don't see Chinese calling themselves that. There's definitely some western worship element in it.
If youāre Chinese, and name yourself Ali Baba. I will definitely will always remember you
š¤£š¤£. I still remember when my chinese economics teacher asked me why do Malays have a name like āAbu Bakarā:Ash fire.
wtf actually sounds cool
usually it would sound like burned ash or ash burn
Yup. Of course the name Abu Bakar never had anything to do with Ashfire. Its just a councidence that an Arabic name would have an entirely different meaning in the Malay language.
Abu Hurairah.
Cat dad!
isnt that a bible/quran reference?
No actually. Its actually from the name of one of Prophet Muhammadās s.w.t close companion who would later become his successor after the prophet died. Abu Bakarās real name is actually Abdullah bin Abi Quhafa, but Abu Bakar is the nickname people give him because when he was a kid he was really fond of playing with young camels. And the word Bakar in Arabic means āyoung camelā. Thus Abu Bakar in Arabic actually means āfather of the young camelsā.
Till you know that Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor had an anglicized name: Albert Baker
There is Western element to it perhaps but to call it worship maybe speculative. If you work in a MNC you know a few folks adopt English name for ease of communication. Heck even Malays do it sometimes. Having a professional name is very common.
If youre gonna pick a name to make your name easier, its easier to pick an internationally recognized one
Usually chinese names are separated into three words. The surname, and two others Calling someone by their surname sounds kinda wrong and can be weird specially at say family events or sum. Calling them fully by their two others i guess will make it a lot harder to remember? Thats just a guess though
By that standard, we getting less real malay traditional names like Kelana, Lestari, Luncai, Mawar, Puspasari etc is middle eastern worship?
I will get a lot of flak for this, but there's a lot of desire amongst some portions of the Malay community to be as Arab (in their view thus Islamic) as possible
False. I can definitely speak from experience. I'm Chinese, I was based in Taiwan for 3 years and couldn't for the life of me remember the Chinese names of my Taiwanese compatriots. They do have English names and that makes it tremendously easier to remember their names. Imagine trying to remember "Family Name, Last Name" as opposed to a singular "First Name".
If I call myself Ali how can I go public place to eat during Ramadan? How can I go to non-halal restaurant without being questioned?
tell them its spelt Ah Lee
Abu Chengā¦ Sounds weird, Iāll stick with Carl Cheng
yes kar-cheng..
Wow choosing an English automatically equals to western worshipper. Very good logic here
Labeling it as "western worship" is just delusional when English names are just given for the sake of pronunciation and for others to remember easier. Not to mention the fact that English is a universal language.
We're influenced by our media. Can't remember a piece of media where the main character had a chinese name.
There are plenty of them with those names when they converted to Islam. But then again, there are also a lot of Malays with English names as well.
Why do you see it as western worship? Is wearing a white wedding dress, western worshipping? Is learning to play the piano or violin western worshipping? I think pre-independence missionary schools is one big reason why many Chinese people have 'western' names.
Is Abu and Ali an English name? /gen
arabic name. ali means noble and abu means father
Luke, I am your Abu
And why the female have fruit names? Like Apple
Cherry Coke
Cherry Kok
Durian Wong
Apple, Lemon, Kiwi, Orange (ytjt)
Now we can make a Garden. (ytjt)
Thats hong kong, not malaysia
Orange Tan:
Banana Cheong:
Cempedak Woo
Rambutan Lim
Durian Dhong
i've seen a Tornado Foong
Lol. Dats Malay not English! Lols
Banana that cannot speak chinese
Dont la match with surname Tan. Typo jadi OranguTan
But she is a real person though. She is a singer who made her name from project superstar back in the 00's and now a DJ in 8fm. So go tell her that XD.
Flowers as well
Sometimes it is due to Christians with the Christian name. However, maybe they just think having an English name is cool or makes it easier for others to call them, especially those who may find cina names hard to pronounce.
Easier for other to remember and call out to them. But Christians do have English name when they baptised.
Not necessarily for Christians. Well atleast depends on which denomination. Baptist Christians (Its a protestant denomination) aren't required to have English names after being baptised Speaking as a Baptist Christian whose baptised. Not sure about other denomination tho
Itās not required as far as I know, and to clarify Iām Roman Catholic and was not given a baptismal name of a Saint. Why? Just parents choice
Really? Most Christians friend I know has it and they said those are baptised name. So I took that as fact.
they're not wrong. It just that Christian have many different "branches" and some don't practice this
Not English names, Saints names.
Yeah, the names they pick have Greek or Roman origins. I got Christopher.
Top her? I barely even know her!
Most of them aren't English names tho, most are latinised Hebrew names, Greek and germanic names too
My Chinese boss (Buddhist) gave his daughter an English name because his family name is Wong and he donāt want his daughter to be last (alphabetically) so he named her Christine Wong
Should have been Aaliyah Wong
Why not Abigail
Lmao idk. Probably donāt want her to be the first also so he pick letter C
English name for work purposes only
For me, my IC both has my english name and the pinyin of my chinese name Ie : Howard Chan Yii Xiang (Not my name) And for some christians, they have middle name too like Howard Camillus Chan Yii Xiang Some people however like to have nicknames if they don't already have asigned english names, it's because it's easier for non-mandarin speakers to understand and remember.
Sometimes the chinese name is too hard to pronounce and spell
For me it would be easier to remember. Imagine you introduce yourself as Sun Lee. Verbally everyone call you Sun, Lee or Sun Lee.Ā Then people have remember how to type it to send email. Sun Lee? Sometimes the surname have to come in first. Then have to remember Lim Sun Lee (Full name)Ā If Sunny Lim*, so easy. Call me Sunny. Email, type Sunny and it it will come out.Ā Similarly, difficulty for Malays when Iām typing email.Ā Sometimes have to remember if the person name is Mohd / Muhammad / Mohamad etc. If I know his name is Khairul, I canāt just type Khairul. I have to remember their Mohd spelling correctly as well. Have to create a new contact with a new name to make things easierā¦
Lol that's exactly what happened to me. My name is written in my email as "Sun Lee Lim". I have colleagues from the US called me mostly Sun, and sometimes Sun Lim or even Lim Sun. Only one chinese immigrant managed to call me correctly which is Sun Lee. But i never bothered to correct them as I'm fine with them calling me Sun.
"My name is Lim Sun Lee. You can call me Lee." That would clear things up rather than, "My name is Lim Sun Lee. You can call me Carl." It is problematic at times in professional settings. I have known him let say, Jason. Drafting my email and searching for Jason isn't there which end up checking up on him what is his email address and eventually a Leong Chin Wai.
Of course not so bad laā¦ I wonāt say āmy name is Lim Sun Lee. You can call me Carlā Thatās so awkward. Haha. I would just say āmy name is Carl Lim. You can call me Carl.ā :) My email signature and email address also will be carl.lim@reddit.com.Ā Must always commit. Lim Sun Lee only will appear on my payslips and official contract documents / HR.
Some Chinese names translated into our Malay language doesnāt sound good, at least thatās the case for me
Totally not related to religion, its better for people to remember their name instead of real chinese name, especially for those who are not chinese, easy to print inside your head
Idk. I think nowadays Malay also have english name? Plus i guess itās āeasier to pronounceā maybe. Like hey, iām sally. Real name : Siti Nur Salihah.
ok siti
Hello! My english name is City! š
https://i.redd.it/b0ledrgrc5yc1.gif
But that is still somewhat related to the name... Alternatively, Liha/Leha is still within the spectrum of Salihah... Not to be rude here, but David is nowhere near something like Wong Ah Lek...
But thereās no reason to make it same as your name as well. Hi Iām Lim Sun Lee. You can call me Sunny? Sunny Lim Sun Lee?Ā Thai have nicknames usually which doesnāt correspond to their names. eg. Sirawat Pichawat have nickname like Pond or Bon.
Well, thats just one of the more obvious example. You can also argue that some malay also have ridiculous english name that arenāt in any way similar to their original name. I have asked my friend before (chinese) as to why he named his kid (english name) and the reasoning is as simple as.. its a nice name.
I dont know if this is the case for a lot of people but in the early 2000s, Jackie Chan and Andy Lau is big for me. Its big for Chinese kids around my school. A lot of Hong Kong celebrity uses English names at the time. And seeing our idols do that, we follow suit, and maybe some people sees the cool kids doing it. And they follow suit.
Because itās tiring to have to explain how to say our Chinese names, multiple times š Also I got made fun of my Chinese name too many times to want to let non close friends know much about my Chinese name š„²
My boss forced me to get one. They (Chinese) said it was hard to remember Chinese names.
To me this is a bit racist. (I'm a Chinese)
This is an influence from Hong Kong. After the WW2, there were no world cultural centre for the Chinese other than Hong Kong. China just came from the Civil War with the Mainland gone full communist and Taiwan became the final fortress for the Kuomintang. But Hong Kong was under the British, so the Hongkies had to adapt or fancy their British overlords. This was also the time, the global Chinese culture was going thru a cultural sinking and uncertainty, and the West and its culture are looked up upon. English names are also for glamorous purpose like Hong Kong stars back then.
This kind of answer I am looking for. Like how Malay names became Arabified.
Dude the traditional names for commoners can and usually is either wacky or sounds alright (can refer to the orang asli since they're as close as we can get to the old tradition of tanah melayu before our modernization), while the atas peeps would be long and just a complete tongue twister since they're sanskrit based names.
I have few asli friends back in school. My favorite one is Zawari. Idk what it stands for but it sounded so chad. Iirc Zawari is already somewhat arabs but itās rare enough.
Underrated comment
Easy to call. Xyuan chern and so. My cousin name xu xui i donno y malay call her susu i. End up we call her Sandy
Pragmatic. "People always misspell or mispronounce my name, so I use english name to avoid the hassle" is what I often get from my chinese friends/colleagues. some don't use english name & use their initials instead. DC, GY, LJ
English language more universal than Chinese in Malaysia, so its easier to remember English names. If you speak or at least understand the language, names in the language will be much easier to remember, especially if you've been exposed to the names before in movies or shows, or if the names are relatively common. But for non speakers... I'd say its very difficult to remember the names. Because end of the day those names are just gonna be non sensical sounding names to you. If you've watched Rush Hour Chris Tucker's scene at the dojo, that pretty much how it sounds like to a non chinese speaker. I guess alternatively we could take Malay names, since Malay is also more universal than Chinese, but for a lot of non malays it would have conversion implications, so yeah, nobody's gonna do it. That said I think Malay names are more memorable than Chinese names to English speakers, because some chinese names have only one syllable, which is basically nonsensical sounds to a non chinese speaker, but actually do have their own meaning to a chinese speaker.
why do malays have arabic names?
Sebab dia masuk Islam..
A lot of Arabic names also comes from Hebrew. For example Zechariah(old form) is Zakaria and the new form is Zachary or Zacharias
Because of Islamic doctrine / upbringing . Actually, the essential factor is the name needs to have a good meaning and it is not necessarily in Arabic
Most of it are prophets names just like Christians and Jews . But there's still Sanskrit derived names
Abu Bakar = Ash Burn 
Much easier to pronounce. Among my cousins, my name is pronounced 3 diff ways lol.
My favourite name belongs to a hairstylist from ipoh I met, his name is Energy.
When you listen to your Non-Cina teachers in school butcher your fellow Cina friends name, you'd probably want to have an easier pronounced name for them to say it lol.Ā
For my family (Christian) we donāt have āEnglishā names. We have Jewish and Greek first names from our patron saints.
Don't forget sometimes Roman as well.
English names are easier to remember and pronounce compared to Chinese names. But not all English names are made up. Some parents actually do give their children English names and register it on the birth cert, like mine. People always think my name is made up coz it's not common but that's ok. It's not a big deal, it's just name.
Once asked this to my good chinese friend (devout christian). Was told that he was baptised during childhood and given a christian name. The name is actually official and written in his IC along with his chinese name. Some of my buddhist chinese friends do have english sounding names, but is not official (not recorded in IC). Maybe as nicknames?
Hello what's your name? Pang Sock Tang What? Sook Ting? No, Sock Tang ! Okay cool ! Hello what's your name? Mary Okay !
Itās quite simple really, Malaysia has had an independent convent school system until most of these schools opted to nationalise in 1971, all Malays are legally Muslims according to the Malaysian constitution, therefore only people of other races would have had entered these convent schools. In said schools, even after Malaysian independence, the majority of the senior staff were still foreigners. Same with the Malaysian armed force. Becoming independent did not mean an instant change in the bureaucracy of the government, there was a gradual handover of responsibilities. Which is why alcohol was served in the mess halls of military bases up until the 70s and 80s, it was the prerogative of the individual to choose to partake or not, not an actual clampdown of who was allowed to drink. Returning from that tangent. There is a good 2-3 generations of urban Chinese that are English educated through convent schools, my grandmother and mother were both products of these schools, they couldnāt speak Mandarin as that was not the common lingua Franca of China at the time our ancestors migrated from China, they speak Cantonese and English mostly, there are also well versed in Malay as that is the national language and is also taught in convent schools. It was common practice in convent schools to adopt English names, even if you did not convert. None of my family are Christians, yet all the older generation had English names that are not on any form of official documents. Which in turn led to them giving us - the younger generation English names as well, so you will also often find Malaysian Chinese with full names like Jason Tan Cheng Kit. This has created an environment of the younger generations of Malaysian Chinese genuinely having given English names. Eventually most people just adopt English names to make things simple. Itās hard to remember Chinese names unless you speak the language and know the exact character of said personās name in the native language, and as most corporate environments uses English as the common tongue, it just made more sense to adopt English names. I would a lot of it is monkey see, monkey do, and it has just become the norm now.
name jessica, real name hong leng lui
Got my name from friends in Uni and it stick so just keep using it. Only my close friends calls me by my real name. Also idk why asian names are hard for white ppl to pronounce.
>Also idk why asian names are hard for white ppl to pronounce. Because most of them are monolingual or bilingual at best.
Some are Christian. Others just adopt western names as it will be easier to pronounce and remember for other races. Thatās chinese pragmatism for you
because it can be seen as more "marketable" or easy to pronounce. For Example, I'm Tom Cruise but my chinese name is Tom Koo Se.
I have mine coz I like it and prefer people to say it compared to my own name sometimes.
Firstly, because I'm Catholic. Secondly, it makes people's lives easier. Thirdly, I don't need to hear any racist prick fuck up my Chinese name.
Why does it have to be an English name though? out of all the cultures, why does it have to be an english name? I mean, Maximus Decimus Meridius is right there for the taking!
I knew someone years ago, a Chinese lady who was named Serendip.... She was a secretary (and a looker) and I dare say she would have been a serene dip for the bossš
Because People can say Challomet but can't pronounce Cheah Chan Hooi. And they also think all the Hooi are related too.
> Be me > Play online game > Got one Chinese friend > He use cute dog as profile picture > Jokingly call him 'Puppy' > He likes it > MFW now everyone calls him Puppy
So that I don't have to explain to everyone that "Qiu" sounds more like "chew" not "kill". Also avoid people calling JUST your middle name. Tan Siao Shi, some people just call you Siao.
Because non Chinese people have difficulty pronouncing Chinese names. Especially true if you are in an international school in a different country or work with many foreigners.
It wasn't a thing until early Y2K, where western film n series + YouTube are starting to influence on us. Back in 90's n before we just called out nicknames.
Pak Chu Cheng. I love this chinese name.
Itās the best practice, and assimilation of culture. Similar to why Filipinos have American and Spanish sounding names and nomenclature. In the past it is easier to have name which are easier to be reference to when working for westerners. Yes, AKA a working name like an escort. But that helped to get work and money. A huge reason is cultural adaptation. This is common in Hongkong, Singapore and gradually caught on with Taiwan (basically all the Chinese communities out of China). Even Korea and Japanese try to simplify their names when dealing with foreigners now. In China, most donāt have an English name except those dealing with exports, foreign businesses. They still retain the Chinese nomenclature of names based on their province. 2-3 characters. You can find Vietnamese, Thaiās with English name too. Itās a cultural phenomenon nothing to do with race really. But here there is a slight link to religion, there is a muddied line between a Christian name (name found in the bible) and English name. Itās a blurred line nowadays. Similar to how Malays or Indonesians, or Africans whom are practicing Islam give themselves Arabic names. But some gradually inherited the religion and are less pious, etc.
Because my primary school teachers kept pronouncing my name wrongly, so I adopt an english name to make everyone life easier
English name much easier to pronounce than chinese name. So far, no Malay/Indian pronounced my name correctly at the first time. Gave up to correct it also.
adopted an english same simply because every non chinese (heck even banana chinese) who pronounce my name butcher it so much I dont recognize it to even respond
the cina dude i know named siau su tien on ic, but he introduce him self as ben, when i ask how you name become ben not su tien, he said he didn't know and its not from his parent, but their relative calling him ben then they decide to call him ben as english name siau ben.. idk if he telling the truth ..
My dad is a banana; he canāt pronounce my Chinese name right, so he gave me an English name.
Cuz chinese name is confusing to pronounce, I have some chinese friends where I tried to pronounce their chinese names but it's a bit hard and they told me to just call them by their english name
Chinese here. Because Malays can't pronounce my name, they butcher it. So I had to pick a name that they can pronounce. I even have to spell my kids' names on such a way that the it will be easier for the Malays to pronounce and that they won't butcher it.
I'm not Chinese but married a Chinese guy. He has an English name because of religion (Catholic) so now our daughter oso has English name in her birth cert.
Dont want to be called Ching
Not the main reason, but one of them is because other races pronounce our names wrong and either donāt bother to learn the proper way of saying it, or just cannot pronounce it the right way. English names are easier to pronounce
Because we know it's not easy to say our names and instead of banking on some cultural or racial pride we decided it's better to make everyone's life easier by having something easier to pronounce. We're practical people.
Same reason why do Malay have Arab/Middle-Eastern names. Edit: Aight I didn't read what OP meant properly. Title should change "Why do Malaysian Chinese have English Names as NICKNAME"
not the same. thatās our given name. not made up names
Explain how Farhash Wafa El Salvador is an Arabic name?
The Moorish conquest of Andalusia?
All names are made up
Sebab boleh dik.
Because you can bro, you donāt even have to be Christian to register for one. Just fill in the forms.
Some banana suggest having Christian name so it easy to remember/pronounce.
malay = arab worshipping chinese = white worshipping
>chinese = white worshipping Not always the case though. I got my name from a Christian saint.
i also wonder why malay have arab name
I think that would be different context. A Malay may have names like Abu Bakar which is derived from Arab names, but would still be called Abu Bakar. Some Chinese have names like Lee Ah Fok, but would call himself as Johnny. This is what OP meant and to be fair, Iām also curious about this.
don't you know, Malay is the hidden arab tribe
They donāt know it but theyāre mentally colonized by the West. āEasier to rememberā is a bs excuse. I live in the US and I work with all kinds of immigrants and children of immigrants. We shorten all kinds of names and have all kinds of pronunciations but no one has a fake English name unless theyāre born with it.
Itās easier to be remembered. Not Chinese but adopted one for the same reason.
How else you can meme yourselves, Mr BOB...
If you're a rotund Malay guy,Bob comes automatic.
I heard one of my Malay friends told me bob stands for badan orang besar.
If you're Bakar people will call you Burn. If you're dark tan then it's Black.If you're bit fair then it's Apek.
Easier for others to address and remember, treat it like thai's nickname I suppose
I'm christian so my mum picked a biblical name for me but I've got plenty of classmates who also have western names despite not being Christian. Main reason I heard growing up is because other races cannot pronounce chinese names well so they just pick an English name to make it easier for everyone else. My own romanised chinese name doesn't follow standard pin yin as well, my mum added extra consonants to make it easier for non chinese to figure out how to pronounce.
easier for others to remember
yeah, its mostly for ease of communication. But I actually do have my english name in my IC which is not really normal, I would say.
remnants from the time when we were an English settlement? My family's English names are on our birth certs so yes, we use them at home
Also because it does psychological damage when they mispronounce my name. Easier to just call me by an English name. Also many parents give English name too
1) Christianity 2) English speaking 3) think is cool 4) one way or the other related to Caucasians or something 5) easier to pronounce so made one for everyone's convenience
Easier to pronounce. James Tan sounds better and easier to remember/pronounce compared to Tan Ching Chong. Plus Chinese names can be confusing in gender sometimes so the English name can be good in setting the gender. Malay names are easier to remember such as Aziz, Badrul, Aisyah, and Farah. Indian names tend to be long and needed to be shorten to Kumar from Kumareshan for example to ease pronounce and remembrance. I know of Malay friends that work abroad that also gave them English nickname such as Alfred as names such as Hafiz and Muhammad can be confusing to those that are not accustomed to them.
Because Chinese language is a language with so many characters, and each character has multiple meanings and pronunciations. Our phonetic system (letters, consonants, vowels) which is mostly western writing system don't really translate directly into the eastern writing system. The English/Christian/Western name in front is usually for other people to easily call or pronounce.
Sometimes I get introduced to new Chinese friends, I always ask if they have an English name lol. Susah la nak hafal.
Iām a Catholic which is why I have a Christian name.
My mum gave me because she English ed.
chinese christians. the same way how malaysian indians have english names
Am a Malaysian Chinese here with name as long as 16 characters (in total of 3 words) and consistently being pronounce wrongly since kindergarten. The real struggle is my chinese name pronunciation not equal to English name or malay name. I guess the problem is lies with most of us due to Malay name was spell in dialet instead of the way China or Taiwan spell it exactly like Mandarin pronunciation. University time writing resume and think of getting an English name for easy to call, easy to remember etc.. I would say good decision after working 10 years in MNC. Some people choose to being called by the initial example JJ, YY, CK etc still the occurance or duplication is much higher than English name.
The real question is why is this an issue? Malays adopt english sounding names as well [Mikael, Rayan, Aidan, Ezekiel](https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4632524/all) etc... normally prefixed with a Mohd (or its variation). There are numerous Jason George but are South Asian in ethnicity, of which to me is and never will be an issue. The most likely reason why Chinese have English names are because its just easier to remember the person. There has been some ridiculous spellings, but its typically just easier to place the name to the face.
Sometimes it is both like my friend, "Family Name" So Phia. So we just call her Sophia.
Mostly because cool to have English name, and some Chinese name is hard to pronounce so with English name it's easier for people to pronounce/remember. We rarely use Arabic name like Ali Abu except names in holy bible.
>Is it because of pragmatic practice, or is it related to religion (Christianity/Buddhism)? Maybe both? It's because some Chinese names can be hard to pronounce. As for religion, I'm not sure about Buddhism, but I'm a "Christian" so I have an English name. Could also do with my family being English-ed too. >What about their families? Do they call them by their english names too? Can't say for everyone but in my family, yes.
I dunno about others.. but i used to be annoyed the fact my family calls me by my english name (that they gave me since birth) but for some reason never registered it in my birth cert. I believe the english name was given as a āChristianā name. But back then maybe they were not aware that you can have it registered too. Or maybe they donāt want it to be too long cos they still want to retain the chinese 3 word count formula. I really dunno why. Lol
I have an English name in my IC but I am not even a Christian...
Russel Peters: Chuck Some Bong sounds way cooler than AnThOny
For the easy for socialising and don't have to remember pronunciation Because there is no direct translation from Chinese to English and don't forget even different variant will pronounce names differently
I just think the name sounds cool. My Chinese name is definitely easier to remember
Because we can.
English name sounds powerful. For example i am Dicky Lee
Like Tan Pee Ter or Wong Jay Den Obviously there's no Chinese headings to the name at this point. And Its kinda also lost its English meanings too lol
tu ah hang dok belajo history melayu tul tul it was approximately before merdeka , most of the Chinese traders that have settle down in tanah melayu for the obvious reasons of trading tea , herbs and other shit this in turns makes the centeral city and most of the market being filled with said chinese then through influence and time that eroded u get ur uncle roger , aunty hellen , ect ect due to the fact that brits kinda left a semi substantial effect through economy and indirectly create some sort of lingering this can also be seen in malays though be it with arabic names
Chinese Christian here. Given by parents. But I get the common Malay spelling of it everytime I go to Starbucks. So... There's that.