Taiwanese names and romanisation

[chrix]

Well, it's still the romanisation your parents gave you. People might feel an attachmentto the spelling of their names for a variety of reasons. When Indonesia underwent a spelling reform to make the spelling look less Dutch and harmonise it with neighbouring Malaysia's, many people also didn't change the spellings of their names, like Soeharto etc. In a similar vein, some Japanese families still insist on using characters from before the simplification... (and many Japanese people have a preferred form of romanisation for their names as well).

[Lu]

Is romanisation determined by the parents? I'm not really sure how this happens, but thought that was usually decided by the official in charge as you apply for a passport. I'll ask around, it's an interesting question.

I understand it with Japanese people who prefer to keep the characters they have, as the basic 'spelling' of their name would be in characters (romanisation is just a tool), same with Indonesians who would like to keep their romanisation, as that is their basic spelling. In Chinese, I can understand if one doesn't want to use different characters, but culturally romanisation has never been particularly important, from what I know (or English names wouldn't be so fashionable).

[chrix]

Well, I don't think they all came up with the romanisation by themselves. And Ma travelled from a very young age, and surely had a passport before he could decide such matters himself... I'm not sure how attached people are to their romanisation, surely less than to their hanzi, you certainly have a point there, but I think for many family tradition plays a role.

I'll also ask around, hehe....

This is slightly OT, but we could also open a thread about the craziest Western name for a Taiwanese person you came across... and bonus points if these crazy names were actually registered in the passport...

[renzhe]

Oh, this is one of my favourite topics! Totally inappropriate English names chosen by Chinese people.

I've read a report about the youth in Shanghai once, and there was a young aspiring model in there who named herself "Cream".

And one guy called himself "Stiffy".

[Lu]

I don't think English names usually get registered in passports.

And look around on the web, forumosa has a thread on this that runs in the tens of pages, and is hilarious.

I haven't met anyone with really weird names (the weirdest was a guy named Jackal, which is not that crazy, compared to some), but I do know Ma Ying-jeou's English name: Mark.

[chrix]

yeah many choose not to, but I seem to recall that you can do so if you want to... (it so happens that most of my Taiwanese friends don't use English names anyways)

I have only been told this by another person, but he came across Lolita and Embryo. Too bad I didn't meet them in person

[in_lab]

I seem to recall that you can do so if you want to...

Using what evidence of an English name? I know you can use an English birth certificate. But I think that can only be different from the Chinese name if one of the parents has a foreign passport. (But maybe you could get hospitals to bend this rule.) Maybe you could also use an English 戶籍. But I think you need some other form of ID to get an original English name in the 戶籍.