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Several reasons: - a lot of Asian families are Christian, so they get Christian names - racism and discrimination. "li guo" just isn't as cool as "pierre" -
by cglee 16y ago
Several reasons:
- a lot of Asian families are Christian, so they get Christian names
- racism and discrimination. "li guo" just isn't as cool as "pierre"
- there's no real great way to spell a lot of Asian names, so might as well just adopt a Western name
- many Asian children have an Asian name and a Westerner name. Both are valid aliases for the person.
- democracy 16y agoRacism is not an issue here, since the last name is still Asian, I guess. A friend of mine from China said the main reason is that some Chinese names are hard to pronounce for an English-speaker. Also other Asian nations (Indians, for examle) seem to leave their names as is, and also give Indian names to kids, I am just wondering, is it something Chinese specific?
- tastybites 16y agoRacism isn't the issue - discrimination is. "Richard Kim" means I grew up in America and will have no problem talking to you. "Han Yong Kim" means you're going to have trouble communicating with me in the workplace.
- tobtoh 16y agoAlso, many people have trouble pronouncing foreign names particularly those that don't come from an english background. Much easier to give your western name than watch someone mangle pronouncing your name several times and still get it wrong.