I feel a bit of sadness whenever I see a western name but I also understand why people do that. I am also very proud to have a Vietnamese first name and no english name. But unfortunately it also means not a lot of people spell my name correctly so even getting a coffee is sometimes amusing.

I think it’s just a consequence of growing up in a different country. I think things are better now than they were 20-30 years ago and I am noticing more people using their names in their native language instead of a western name.

Guy is presented to a tribe whose members are all named Pierre ☞ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LinufYk2jkY

When every encounter you have turns into a phonetics exercise, it gets tiring after some time.

Hello, call me Bob or Tom but just don’t ask me to teach you how to pronounce a name i didn’t choose.

I mean… even though I always thought my name is a very beautiful name, I’ve always wanted to use an English name, you know… to fit in. I sort of had one that I picked, but… you see…

I didn’t even speak English at first… so it’d be every very awkward to use a name in a language I didn’t even yet understand… so I kinda put off on this English name thing for a bit, and then when school started, I realized someone in my class actually has that same name, and he’s a ABC (“American-Born Chinese”), so I would feel like an imposter for using that name, so I kinda just… like… procrastinated about this topic for a while.

By the time I learned enough English, I’ve already been known by my Pinyin-Chinese name (I call it “Pinyin-Chinese” because its latin-ized, and without the tones, its not truely Chinese, just a transliterlization of the name) for a while, so now it feels “too late” to switch to an English name.

I mean, I could’ve done it when we moved to Philly, I had enough knowledge of the English language after being here about 4 years, but I still have self-confidence issues… so I didn’t feel brave enough to use that English name I picked. I didn’t feel like it quite “fit” me. So… I just keep on using my Pinyin name, and I had another 2 great opportunities to do it, when moving up from elementary school to middle school, and then from middle school to highschool.

I got US Citizenship while I was in middle school (via the Child Citizenship Act, my mom naturalized and I, as a Legal Permanent Resident, automatically derived Citizenshop status from my mother). But even so… the racism basically made not feel welcome enough. I didn’t feel “American Enough” to use an English name. So I didn’t do it for the final name, when I move up to highschool.

I’ve believed in the ideals of freedom and democracy for a long time, and as I got older, the more I realized I liked the US way more than China. I mean, China never really wanted me. I was the 2nd child born during the One Child Policy, I was rejected, they pretended I didn’t exist for the first few years of my life. And as I got older, I realized just how much more freedom the US has, and how much censorship there was in China. So… yeah. But even so, I struggled to fit in to the US. Racism. I got casually called a “ching chong” like… probably at least 10 times by now. I remember most of the racism I experienced was in Philadelphia schools, I don’t exact remember any happening when I was in school in Brooklyn, NY. Philly is less diverse… so yeah… Less exposure to diversity makes people more bigoted, who would’ve guessed.

So… now I already finished K-12 school… I’m just gonna stick with my original name for the forseeable future… for now… like whatever.

Now, I don’t even think I like that English name I chose (you know, the one that I chose but never really got to use). Since then, I went though a list of common Asian American English names, and Idk which to pick lol. These names sound so silly to be, didn’t “fit” me.

…

I mean, I guess when I applied for the N-600, requesting the Certificate of Citizenship (it’s not a naturalizatiom btw, I was already automatically a Citizen because my mom naturalized, this is just obtaining the evidence for the Citizenship status I legally already have), I could’ve requested a name change legally (this was during middle school btw). But legal name change could cause problems with the inconsistency in names, and my mom told me there’d be a bureaucraric nightmare, so I just listened to her and didn’t go with any name changes…

So I’m just gonna continue using my original name unless I try to run for office or something. (I’m probably never gonna run for office lmao, too much stress, like who the f even has that evergy.)

P.S.

I mean, with Chinese names being so cool, for me at least, it doesn’t hurt to continue using it even if nobody else understand the meaning of my name and appreciate its beauty. Chinese names are 3 characters, it just so… like perfect lol. 3 is such a cool number. The characters, when written in Traditional Chinese, it looks like a piece of artwork. Each character has meaning, the name has a meaning beyond just a being bunch of sounds you respond to when someone calls you that. I mean no offence, but when you look at English names, do you even know the meaning behind the names? Is there even a deeper meaning? You’d probably need a google search. In Chinese, the meaning of the characters should be obvious, everyone learns each individual characters, nobody learns latin roots of English words.

I see it all the time. Mostly from younger people. People who are my parents and grandparents age usually dgaf and don’t bother with a Western nickname.

I don’t have an Asian name myself bc my parents were advised against it when they were new immigrants. It was to avoid mispronunciations and potential bullying in school. Now that we’re talking about this, I wonder what my Asian name would be if I had one xD