Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyB
Nearly all the Chinese people I know who are working in professional positions have English names, and many actually use their English names when communicating with colleagues even though they're speaking Chinese. Also, pretty much all Chinese kids get English names when they start learning English. You'd have a hard time finding a high school student in a major urban centre of mainland China who has an economic/educational standing that might see them capable of emigrating and who doesn't have an English name. Really, you'd be hard to find any with an education that involved any English learning who doesn't have an English name.
The fact that the names are often kind of weird shouldn't really be that surprising though. What would you be called if you were allowed to choose your name when you were 10?
I got my Chinese name as an adult, and it's pretty weird in China.
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That's odd. Maybe its the younger generation because all the mainlanders I meet here in Calgary from ages 20-60 in University and in professional jobs all use their Chinese first names "Wei, Jiao, Yi, etc." It's the ones with Cantonese last names that have English first names.