Thanks for your replies! It is nice to hear that I'm not a politically incorrect, backwards thinking, linguistic imperiallist for wanting to select two separate names that will fit well into our two respective cultures. I've outlined some of the arguments against using two names or changing/altering your name for another culture on my Squidoo lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/naming-multicultural-babies/, but I'll repeat (i.e. paste, I'm lazy) here:
Arguments Against:
Recently, a good friend of mine expressed his strong belief that (in his words) "one should not try too hard to conform one's name for the sake of people who may not be able to appreciate it or pronounce it properly." In the past I taught English as a foreign language. When I started, in the early 1990's, it was still common to have students select common English names (just as I used a French name in French Class in High School). This was just one part of the "Whole Language" approach to language instruction. But I soon learned that practice was controversial. To some it smacks of "linguistic imperialism"; to others it unnecessarily strips the students of a large part of their self-identity.
Feelings about taking on additional names are much stronger outside the classroom, but the arguments are similar. Below I list some common arguments against the practice of re-naming yourself or your children to fit a particular culture.
1. Changing your child's name or having multiple names is confusing to friends and family. Rarely is there a clean cultural division among your friends, family, and acquaintances.
2. Having an odd name can build character. You can't protect your child from all teasing and bullying, nor should you. Generally, the reason parents give their children more common or more easily pronounced names is so that they will "fit in." A parent's goal shouldn't be to raise unexceptional wall-flowers who are afraid to stand out of the crowd, but rather children who respect themselves and their cultural heritage.
Some Arguments that I made for:
In Defense of Multiple Names
For many people, altering your name, or selecting an entirely new name, is an appropriate choice. Here I discuss several reasons why you may desire to use multiple names.
1. I've had many Taiwanese and Chinese people tell me that they hate how English-speakers butcher their names. My wife's name, for example, contains a sound that doesn't exist in the English language (the Mandarin Chinese aspirated "r"), so when we were living in the United States, nobody could pronounce it unless they practiced Chinese pronunciation. She hated the way American's pronounced her name and didn't want to have to hear it anymore. The best solution to naming our baby might be to find a name that sounds good in both Chinese and English. But it is hard to find a good Chinese name that sounds nice in English and doing so may mean compromising on other important naming considerations such as local beliefs, family tradition, and what our preference would be if we didn't need to consider how it would sound to Americans.
2. If your child's name is difficult pronounce and remember, it could have a negative professional impact. By this, I don't mean due to racism or ethnic bigotry. Changing your name will do little to help with that and I would never advocate changing your name to make chauvinists happy. What I mean is that a very difficult name makes it more uncomfortable for people to do business with you and much harder for you to stick in their mind. This is a very personal choice for anyone doing business. I certainly respect people who refuse to change their name for business or making life more comfortable for themselves, but I also respect a person's decision to change their name for the same reason. I have little patience, however, with people who are overly self-righteous on this point and expect everyone to make strong efforts to get their name right. If you are my friend, a customer, or someone else that I care about for business or personal reasons I will certainly make that effort (it is only polite and a good business practice). But if you are a stranger trying to sell me something or convince me to do something, don't get upset by the fact that I haven't studied thousands of languages and am not inclined to give a whole lot of time to getting your name right.
I don't expect people in Taiwan to get the English pronunciation of my name right and I don't mind using the Chinese translation of my name. If the Chinese translation of my English name was very difficult to remember and say for most Taiwanese, or if it sounded like a bad joke, I would simply select a more standard Chinese name.
3. Who says we have to use one name at one time our entire lives? In many cultures today or in the past, it was common for people to have multiple names for various purposes or phases in their lives (pen names, honorific names, religious names, and names for coming of age, the death of a parent, etc.) I see no reason why using multiple names should be objectionable in anyway.
Thanks again for your thoughts. Forumosa is great!
