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Why do some Chinese people pick weird English names?
In China, family names are concentrated (20% of the people are Wang/Li/Zhang), whereas given names are unique. The opposite is true in the U.S. and the U.K.
TLDR: Because Chinese people distinguish themselves by given names.
In China, family names are concentrated (20% of the people are Wang/Li/Zhang), whereas given names are unique. The opposite is true in the U.S. and the U.K.
TLDR: Because Chinese people distinguish themselves by given names.
You can see more "given name concentration" charts in my new blog post here: https://yiqinfu.github.io/posts/chinese-people-weird-english-names/.
The idea is that "common given names" are a lot less common in China than in the U.S. or the U.K.
The idea is that "common given names" are a lot less common in China than in the U.S. or the U.K.
In China, the typical naming process involves opening a dictionary and finding (often esoteric) characters that embody the values the parents wish to impart on the child.
(Sometimes fortune tellers, fengshui masters, and astrologists are involved too.)
(Sometimes fortune tellers, fengshui masters, and astrologists are involved too.)
Thus, when people get the chance to name themselves (in another language), they adopt the same "find-a-unique-word" approach and call themselves Pizza, Lucky, Creek, etc.
