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the name game

this dialogue may or may not have taken place at shanghai university this week:

student: she’s bringing one of her friends to the dinner. cute.

teacher: oh, so you like this girl? the friend.

student: no, that’s her name: cute.

ah yes, another semester, another slew of students with peculiar, yet priceless, english names.

a sampling of this year’s crop (in no particular order): chriss, lichee, viya, luvee, vitamin, even, shiny, bristol, pizzaro, sting, fanny, heero, vanilla, kurapica, luthy, viper, sunshine (a guy), geniala, quasar, spirits, threa, vicient, jeff (a girl), canoe, interne, mercury, fish, amigo, hill west, ice, vassili, stockton, napanee, mealing, castal, shirka, sin, nickel, seifer, ekin, manson, beryl and an inordinate number of girls named mavis and stella.

09.10.2003, 10:47 PM · Humor, School

11 Comments

  1. On Jan 12, 2004 9:28 PM, Robin said:

    Bristol? Cool thats my home town. Boy or girl? Hope you’re enjoying being back in SH Dan.

  2. On Jan 12, 2004 9:28 PM, iris said:

    It’s quite common for Chinese students choosing various words as their English name. Maybe they’re funny to the foreigners. It’s just shows they know little about the western name culture. I don’t think the word “peculiar” suitable for the situation. Foreigners also have funny Chinese names if choosing without the help of Chinese. Dan, as a foreign teacher, you should help them in stead of just laughing at. Right?

  3. On Jan 12, 2004 9:32 PM, terra said:

    those names are really funny. i think maybe nowadays chinese students tend to show their own personality.and a pecular english name can meet the demand

  4. On Jan 12, 2004 9:32 PM, audge said:

    is it just me, or did somebody confuse the dictionary of “common english names” with the dictionary of “not-so-common stds?” hope you got your shots.

  5. On Jan 12, 2004 9:33 PM, Hannah said:

    I think my favourite names of students I had in Shanghai, were Funeral and Sanitary. I quite like the idea of Viper as a name.

  6. On Jan 12, 2004 9:34 PM, fish said:

    i am the fish.every time i meet a new foreigner,i will be asked the same question”why do you choose this name ?”i know it is rather stranger to a foreigner.and i have to repeat the same answer,fish has the same pronouciation with my family name in chinese.now i am thinking about changing a name,but many friends of mine have used to the name.what a difficult choice to me!

  7. On Jan 12, 2004 9:34 PM, kugua said:

    Hi Dan:
    You are a nice looking kid!

  8. On Jan 12, 2004 9:35 PM, kugua said:

    Dan:
    Actually you are a nice looking young man.

  9. On Jan 12, 2004 9:35 PM, daniel said:

    This is something that really stopped me in my tracks - these weird names that Chinese students pick for themselves. Some of the ones my students have chosen: Blue, Cloud, Doom, Ulysses, Annihilator. I’m pretty certain the last 3 come from computer games.
    Funnily when I explained names like this are just not “names” in English, that they sound weird, and would anyone like to change them, no one wanted to do so. So maybe the words they choose are actually quite significant to them. I didn’t pursue the issue any further. It’s their name, they’re used to it now ,after all.

  10. On Jan 12, 2004 9:36 PM, Yolanda said:

    Really weird names, even to a Chinese like me. The purpose to have an English name is for convenience. My English Name is Yolanda and I’ve been using it for quite a long while. I sometimes thought I should pick up a much common one instead of this, because even “Yolanda” is hard for most local Chinese to memorize. It’s embarrassed both to me and to my colleagues when I had to keep reminding my name to them until they could call me without hesitation.

    BTW, Dan, I always enjoy your posts, great observation!

  11. On Nov 29, 2004 10:37 PM, bingfeng said:

    Dan,

    i LOVE your blog, i Love your humor!

    bingfeng