Chinese Surnames are in Front - What, How and Why?

[Liang Jieming]

Chinese Surnames are in Front

- What, How and Why?

They really don't know what to do with names that have surnames in front, do they? I watch with amusement the way surnames are inconsistently listed/reported. Sometimes a Chinese name like Singapore's tabletennis player is listed as Zhang Xueling, and sometimes as Xueling Zhang.

I must commend the recent years sports organisers for they way they no longer insist on throwing Chinese and Korean surnames to the back (lastname) but instead to respect the two cultures. However, admittedly this is creating a little confusion, especially for Chinese names from countries from Singapore and Malaysia where Chinese names have been "westernised" and the surnames thrown to the back. I don't see this in the China Chinese or in the Korean names probably due to the way the names were first submitted to the Olympic committee and hence the "correct" surname placing.

This is really a simple matter of better understanding between the differing cultures. I face this same problem whenever I have to deal with clients from Europe or North America. Despite constant reminders, they still put my surname at the back even on cheques and other such "official" documents, which creates problems for me when I try and cash them or use them in Singapore. This confusing state of affairs has resulted in us having "multiple" versions of our names which we are forced to switch between when dealing with different people and cultures. This is made worse with the use of English names. To use the same example above; if Zhang Xueling had an English name like Jill for instance, a simple Chinese name like Zhang Xue Ling (3 characters) suddenly also becomes Xue Ling Zhang or Jill Zhang Xue Ling or Jill Xue Ling Zhang or Jill Zhang X.L. or Jill X.L. Zhang. And mind you, I've seen all these variants used. To make matters worse, a new and disturbing trend is emerging in Singapore where some locals are starting to have Firstnames, Middlename and Lastnames, throwing centuries of tradition down the rubbish chute. This is exaggerbated by the use of Western First & Middlenames, something like Ester Michelle Chan for example. Why?

I was once greatly insulted when meeting an associate from Australia for the first time. In our introductions, I introduced myself in my Chinese name and he abruptly asked me if I had an English name or some other name that would be easier for him to call me by. I recalled the book "Roots" by Alex Haley and how his ancestor by the name of "Kunta Kinte", brought over to the Americas from Africa as "Black Slaves", repeatedly rejected an English name "Toby" that his Master insisted on calling him by, even to the point of having to bear constant beatings and punishments. Not the least amused, I retorted and asked in return if he had a Chinese name instead of his English one so that I could more easily call him by. He at least had the decency to look appropriately apologetic.

My old university in Canada which prides itself as a "Bridgeway to the Pacific Rim" and champions the concept of the "Global Citizen", rather ironically fails to grasp this simple concept. Decades after my graduation, I'm still struggling with the Alumni office and the University to get my name right. I grit my teeth at every Alumni function and at every meeting with visiting University dignatories.

The problem has deteriorated so badly here in Singapore that people without Western names like me, are sometimes portrayed as backward and made to feel ashamed to use our Chinese names in more formal settings. Apparently, our "backward" Chinese names are only good for the local wet market, hawker centres and in the home. They are not good enough in the international arena.

For long suffering multiple named people like me, it is our greatest hope that the world would just learn how to deal with a surname in front and not require us to move our names around just to suit them. Any Westerner would have balked and screamed bl**dy murder if they had to do that to their names. The problem is made worse by inconsistencies in our own policies. Even Singapore Government forms and websites sometimes require the filling in of Firstnames, Middlenames and Lastnames, probably due to the difficulty in modifying off-the-shelf computer software from the US. Non-Asian religions are also to be blamed because, not only do they preach their religious beliefs, they are also rather intolerant of Asian cultures and values in their practices. The Chinese/Korean name is an integral part of our culture just like a Western name is an integral part of the Western culture. It is indeed a testimony to the open-mindedness of Asian cultures in our abilities to adopt as well as understand different naming conventions in our day to day dealing with other cultures but surely, this is going too far.

Allow me to explain the significance of the Chinese/Korean name. The front surname reflects the importance the Chinese/Korean places on the family above self. The second name, eg. Xue in Zhang Xueling's name, is the generation name which places the person into the correct generation so that we will always know who our brothers/sisters/cousins are and more importantly, who our elders are. Finally comes our personal name, eg. Ling which is the person's "actual" name. Often you will find "Ah Ling" used as a term of endearment or as a term of familiarity between close friends and family. This is because, Ling is her "true" name self. A Chinese/Korean is never called by his/her generation name or surname unless in mock seriousness or in more official settings like in the office.

Unlike in Western cultures, our elders are never called by name. It is both insulting as well as disrespectful. There are numerous honorifics used, which loosely translated would be equivalent to the western Auntie, Uncle, Grandfather etc. However, I must admit, there is a prohibitively large number of honorifics to remember especially when there are two separate sets, one for the mother's side of the family, and another for the father's side of the family, and to make matters worse, dependent on whether the person in question is older or younger in family position to your parent. Luckily, for those who don't know the correct honorific, there is a quick fix solution. When in doubt, the use of the terms Brother, Sister, Auntie, Uncle, Grandmother and Grandfather would suffice, but never, ever the person's actual name unless you are sure he/she is of the same of younger generation than you are and not significantly older than you.

Confused yet? Don't be. My name reflects my culture. It is a product of 5000 years of Chinese history and family traditions. It was given to me by my parents and the meanings inherent in my name reflect the hopes and aspirations of my family. My name is what makes me who I am, and it defines who we are as a people. Don't make me take a Western name or have me change my surname into a lastname just to suit you. I take the trouble to pronounce the names from other cultures properly. Do me the curteousy of learning mine. :-)

My name is Liang Jieming (梁傑明).

[skylee]

Yes there are confusions but I don't think it is such a great big problem. I have three names, one is my family name "Lee", another my given Chinese name "Kkk Yyy", and another a western name also given by my parents "Sss". So officially my name is "Lee Kkk Yyy Ssss". People can call me "Lee Kkk Yyy", dropping the "Ssss", and it is fine. It is also fine that people call me "Ssss Lee" or even "Ssss Lee Kkk Yyy". I don't think it is a big deal.

But then this is Hong Kong, a Chinese city. It may be very different for Singaporean Chinese.

Hungarian surnames also come in front of given names, I believe.

BTW, I think not everyone cares about "generation name" nowadays.

[Liang Jieming]

Perhaps... admittedly I wrote the article with shock-value in mind, but at the end of the day, if we all stop bothering to use our names properly just so as to make life easier, we lose the very thing we are trying to preserve. You don't have to imagine the consequence. Just look at the Islamic world. Where are the pre-islamic Malay names? Where are the Persian names? Where are the old Egyptian names? Everyone's a Mohammad, an Ali, a Khalid or a Mustapha these days. Would your future be a world of John, Smith and Jones?

[imron]

梁傑明, if only all Chinese were as open-minded as you. When I first went to China, I was determined not to have a Chinese name. After all, even though I'm a native English speaker, my name isn't English, and as my fellow country-men have to put up with me having an unusual name, I saw no reason why it should be any different for the Chinese.

Also, growing up with a reasonably unique name (I've never met anyone with the same name - although after the advent of the internet, I found out that other Imrons do exist), to some extent it became an important part of me, so I saw no reason to change it.

However, after 2 years, I finally decided to choose a Chinese name for myself because I was sick of having my name mispronounced and/or having other people just giving me a Chinese name of their own choosing, including Beijing University on registration day telling me that I had to have a Chinese name, even though I mentioned I neither had nor wanted one. 4 years on, the Chinese still seem pretty unsure about how western names work. Just today I received the enrolment list for people on the '07 Tsinghua MBA program and the names there are all over the place. Some capitalised, some not, some with the surname first, some with the surname last.

Even though I would love it if Chinese people would use my real name, unfortunately neither of the two syllables of my first name exist in the Chinese language and so for anyone with no/limited exposure to English, it's difficult if not impossible to get right. Even if I spend the time to help them try and pronounce it correctly, in the end a native Chinese speaker will typically just settle on a Chinese variation of my name.

All of this doesn't even begin to take into account my surname, which is only going to add more confusion for a culture and language where names are usually no more than 3 syllables (Chinese transliterations of my full name usually end up around 6-7 syllables long).

Through all of this, I never once screamed bl**dy murder, and in the end I took the practical approach and chose a name that I was happy with, that could be easily pronounced/recognised by a Chinese person, rather than putting up with the constant mistakes, corrections and random name assignments.

Anyway, getting to my point, for someone who cannot speak Chinese, a Chinese name is going to be difficult to get right - and probably impossible if the person has no idea about tones. Your name is maybe not so difficult as the pinyin letters are reasonably close to their English counterparts, but imagine a name like Zheng Xiaoqin. It contains sounds that don't exist in English, and in addition, the pronunciation of several of the letters don't correspond to the English pronunciations for these letters. All of this means that a native English speaker with no exposure to the Chinese language has little/no hope of getting the name correct.

In such cases, asking for an easier to pronounce name is not necessarily because the native English speaker wants the convenience of something easy to remember/pronounce, it may simply be because they don't want you to suffer the indignity of them constantly mispronouncing/forgetting your name (because no matter how much you try and teach them, they know they'll probably never get it right).

Anyway, I understand the point you're making, and I agree, it would be nice if everyone around the world would just pronounce everyone's name correctly. As the world gets smaller, and as people from different cultural/language backrounds start to communicate more regularly with each other, these problems will start to go away. Unfortunately, in the meantime it's people like us, who cross language and cultural boundaries, that get stuck in the cross-fire, because the reality is, for people who don't speak the language that a name originates from, it's either going to be unrealistic for them to get it right, or the owner of the name is going to end up spending a lot of time correcting and explaining things.

[zhenhui]

Well, I am in Singapore and my sirname is constantly put at the front on my paycheck....when it should be at the back (i'm indo chinese) like my bank account name.... i constantly have to write

"If this inversion of surname is a problem, please let me know and i shall finally bug my employee to invert it back" every month on my paycheck!

so i'm in sort of the same position as Jieming ....

Diana

[roddy]

You'd likely be horrified by many Chinese high-school / college classes or offices with a mostly young staff - it's not unusual for Chinese students or young white-collar workers to refer to each other by their adopted English names.

[trevelyan]

long suffering multiple named people.... our greatest hope [is] that the world would just learn how to deal with a surname in front.... Non-Asian religions are also to be blamed...intolerant of Asian cultures and values... throwing centuries of tradition down the rubbish chute... a testimony to the open-mindedness of Asian cultures.

Is this supposed to be a joke?

[Ian_Lee]

Not all Chinese and Koreans in U.S. have English first names.

The latest example is Yul Kwon, a descendant of Korean immigrant who just won US$1 million in the last series of Survivor. Yul is a Stanford and Yale graduate. He is born in Queens and his parents didn't give him an English first name at birth. But when People Magazine introduced him, it simply labelled him as "Yul" in the article.

In Hawaii, many second or even third generation Chinese or Korean or Japanese don't have an English first name.