Now that my tenure as a corporate desk monkey in China has drawn to a close, I look back upon all the happy memories. The good times, the bad times, the disastrous times, and even those times where I yearned to be freed from this hell, ending my misery with a sweet, sweet death brought upon by plunging chopsticks into my brain via my vulnerable ear canals.Above all, I will miss my local colleagues, those creative wonders with fantastical names plucked straight out of my high school English teacher's darkest nightmares. Such baffling appellations can only be described as a cultural phenomenon. If not for these special people, I would never have had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take an elevator ride with Demon, sit on a bus beside Yahoo, or get a customer service request from Viking. These are blessings from God.
But now my heart is heavy. Over these many years charting the course of name evolution, we stand here today in a time and age where Apple and Bear receive nary a chuckle. What kind of world do we live in where I can't even get a laugh at the expense of someone named Rainy or Linko?
Like our jaded millennial society, so extreme and unfazable, we have no other option but to get hardcore. Nobody cares about naming yourself after fruit (unless you choose Banana, tee-hee!) or a random woodland creature (can we get a Weasel up in this mofo, please?) anymore. The challenge now is choosing a name that will really stick out. Like Mouthwash or Whisker (I've yet to see these in use, so you can consider it my gift to any of you out there with a baby on the way. Congrats.).
So let us join hands and take one final trip into the wilds of Chinese English names, to remember the good times passed and pray for the future of our planet, a world where Fish walk, Bacon talks, Alien makes contact and Gandhi (indeed) lives again.
[Editor's note: It goes without saying, a (sic) should be assumed next to every one of these babies. I vouch that every one of these names belongs, or belonged, to a real employee at our company at one point during my duration of employment from 2004 to 2010. You really could not make this shit up. Believe me, I've tried. My imagination fails me.]
Welcome To The Jungle
The last time we took a peek into the twisted minds of these crazy name people, it was 2008. Since then, we've welcomed a few new superstars, some of which take the cake for sheer audacity and balls. To wit:
Gandhi.
This guy is a fucking legend. I would have been satisfied with a Motherteresa, Martinlutherkingjunior or some other such untouchable humanitarian. Maybe Bono. But this? Us mere mortals should commend this genius for accepting nothing less than Gandhi.
I approve.Keeping in line with iconic dead guys, we also have a pair of Elvises and a Christ, which aren't that outrageous. But how about naming yourself JOHN DENVER? (John Denver Zhang, to be exact.) Inspired.
Stealing names from the deceased can be a noble way to honor those that have passed. Naming yourself after living or fictional characters is also bundles of fun. Whether plucked from mythology, television or sports, this is simple hero worship.
We've got the baller-loving Kobe. The one-two double punch of Keanu/Neo. Also the inexplicable Seinfeld fan, Kramer.
In all his Technicolor GloryMaybe some of these folks like their mythology a bit too much (I can't blame them). Like our buddies Christ and Lucifer, this may be a little sacrilegious:
Jove, Adonis (who is this guy kidding???), Atlas, Apollo, Titan, Triton, Odin
In fact, poring through the web of names year after year after year, one pattern is quite clear: many people, like those hero-worshipers above, pick names bearing qualities and characteristics that they would like to have. Something to aim for, an ideal to capture, a way to be. Something to inspire them to be even better. The Wish Listers.
Courage, Fancy (and his archnemesis, Fancyer), Wish, Lean, Perpetual (aiming for immortality here), Power, Pretty, Super, Keeper, Sweety, Hansome, Midas, Loyal and, a personal fave, Man Li.
The past couple years have also seen a spike in confused ethnicities. In the beginning, the only confusion stemmed from reading the pinyin "Juan" as the more familiar Spanish pronunciation (made even more confusing by our buddies named "Huan"). But now we've got a whole slew of wannabe Romantics.
The Spaghetti Lovers: Angelo, Claudio, Adele, Marco, and Adriano (note, these are all local Chinese, not to be confused with our Euro/American friends with the same names.)
The Latin Lovers: Juan, Lopez, Luis, Raul, Yolanda (5 of 'em!) and Jorge
Not to be outdone, we also hired a genius whiteboy who chose a Chinese name no less ridiculous than these locals we've been ridiculing for the past few paragraphs. Taking one for the team, Yao Ming.
Sigh.
Then of course you've got the group on the bottom of the barrel. Perhaps they chose these names as a form of daily self-flagellation, a way to remind themselves they are meaningless dirt in this great universe, just a speck of nothing in the eyes of God, a symbol of our mortal foibles and warning of what not to become. Or they are simply in dire need of some Prozac. These are some of my all-time favorites.
Coma, Burden, Insomnia, Odd, Freaky, Crazy, Peyton, Demon, Simple, Stuck, Tiny, Hermit, Boredom, Worm, Scud
My buddy Worm (coincidentally also the nickname of one of my real life childhood pals) has got a whole zoo-load of friends in the animal department, which has always been a crowd pleaser. There's just something special about dialing an extension and asking for Piggy, Pony, Penguin or Rabbit, as if a magical talking creature were on the other end of the line. Like in a Disney movie (we've got a Disney too, just so you know. And a Walt)... a really sad and depressing Disney movie where the protagonist's soul is crushed by corporate bureaucracy (shout outs to Simba and Nemo).
As for fruits (Apple, Cherry), it's just cute. This is the realm of the ladies, who want to feel like adorable little dolls, naming themselves something sweet. But what about the rest of the edibles? These names are, excuse me, good enough to eat.
Celery, Chocolate, Kiwi.
Yum.
Now that you've put the kids to bed, we can get a little freaky deekay. The teenage boy within me will never, ever grow up, so I salute these comrades for choosing names that never fail to make me quietly guffaw to myself (God help me if I have to ask for one of these people on the phone...), as I sit at this computer screen scrolling through bullshit names for your reading pleasure.
Pipi, Cream, Semon (THREE OF THEM), Swallow, Juicy, Winkie, Dick Gu, Dick Yu (get it? Dick you! oh man, never gets old!), Titi
Of course, as a soon-to-be New York Times bestselling author, my favorite names also include those that, in the proper context, would seem mundane and boring. But when you take an adverb, gerund or a preposition and slap it in front of a Wang or a Zhang, it becomes comic gold for the bookworm set, like Wondering, Rising, and Feeling.
Another personal favorite are the THINGS. The names plucked from a random list of nouns. These might be nicknames for folks overseas, but here, we address emails to professional clients with these names. I am considering following suit and changing my name to Scarf (or Stock, lol).
Limit, Mallet, Hammer, Meteor, Money, Piano, Shoulder, Skin (bleagh!), Sniper, Soul
Since everyone and their mamma is going green these days, let's salute this bunch for doing their part for Mother Earth:
Cloud, Thunder, Tree, Soil, Wind, Snow, Sleet, Sunrise, Moonlight, Sky (a whopping 22!!!), Twig
I'll wrap things up with the perennial favorites. The WTF?!? Batch, The Spellcheck All-Stars, and then the failed Lord of the Rings characters. I will forever remember these jokers.
Huwk, Jick, Leer, Leging, Luger, Mysality, Phase-Change, Purp, Sonic, Turble, Uzid, Vigoss, Weickham, Yeedith, Zephylos, Zoro, Giggs, Keyinfour, King Kong, Linkevinse, Sbean, Winkle
Unexpected Thoughts and Reflection
When I did my last audit in 2008, I was flabbergasted to discover the most Chinesiest of all names, the formidable China Wang (upstanding socialist brother to good old Russian Lai). He named himself after the entire motherland. Since then, he has been joined by other like-minded comrades, whose likely goal is to create an entire gang of Young National Chinese Superstars of the New Order. Who are these icons in the making?
Sino, head of the Ministry of Latin Prefixes.
Orient, head of the Ministry of Archaic References To The Motherland and Purveyor of Fine Carpets.
And my personal favorite, the cuddly Minister of Endangered National Mascots and Eye-Bag Concealing Cosmetics, PANDA.
I hereby submit my application to officially change my name to United States Yeung...
Moving along...
In the beginning, I would double over laughing like a kid in 5th grade peeking through the reproduction section of the biology textbook whenever I came into contact with Fantasy, Vanish or Pinky. I mean, who were these retards with the crazy names and how did they expect to be taken seriously? But aside from a small minority of us English-speakers who were in on this elaborate inside joke, almost all of our local colleagues never seemed to notice. To the Chinese, Juicy and Petros were just the English names that Wang Bing and Liu Li chose for the email directory and meetings with foreign customers.
After working with them for so long, I got to know many on a personal level. I had, after all, been working under a woman named after the period of the day between dawn and noon for almost 6 years (my dear Morning). The silly names became secondary and I didn't notice so much anymore (unless I came across any particularly heinous cases like Cuckoo or Gadfly...yeesh!). It was no longer a matter of working with some idiot who named himself after a kitchen utensil or landscaping feature, but rather, working with Oven from the IT department or helping Smile from Accounting carry a package to the mail room. In a way, instead of the name turning their respective owner into a joke, these folks made the names their own. And rather than focus on the name, I ultimately focused on the human it belonged to. *Cue sappy Lifetime music*
Don't get me wrong, I still get a kick out of fresh faces like Penguin, the short, chubby guy who actually wore black and white for his directory picture; Yao Ming, the white dude from our school who decided to throw his hat into the opposite cultural end of the Bad Name ring with that ridiculous choice of Chinese name; and T-Bag, the freak who either named himself after a pedophilic sociopath from the late Fox hit TV show, Prison Break, or his favorite oral sex activity (either way, both not very healthy). But it takes quite a bit of creativity to spark my interest after being exposed to this comedy for so long. It's a part of the scenery now.
Proof!!!
Thus after such an extended period of cowork and cohabitation with these mad name scientists, I can conclude that all things are relative, especially cultural norms and naming conventions. In a group with Heaven, Hebrew, and Hunkey, chances are I am actually the odd one out. After all, I'm the guy named after a past-his-prime crooner...My Top 20 Super Best All-Star Hall of Fame
And now I present to you the best of the best of the six long years I've been wasting valuable company time scrolling through the directory:
20. Demon
19. Jock
18. Only
17. Odd (last name? Hung. Classic)
16. Superiority
15. Vagabond
14. Vanish
13. Fantasy
12. Rorry (ruh-roh! that good old Scooby Doo winner from 2007)
Ruh Roh!10. Buddy Ryan (the English alias, both first and last name, mind you, of one Mr. Ren Wan Chun)
9. Boredom
8. Insomnia
7. Coma (the Trinity of Depression!)
6. Hermit
5. T-Bag
4. Lucifer (I still don't know how THREE of these guys got past our old CEO)
3. Christ (had to put him up front, since it takes bigger cojones to name yourself after the Messiah)
2. Bigtree (not Big Tree, but Bigtree. and dude is TALL. Perfection)
1. Gandalf (Middle Earth meets Middle Kingdom. Oh. My. God.)
At no other time in my short, pitiful life will I ever have the extreme fortune to work in the same organization as the most badass wizard of ALL TIME. And for this I extend my deepest gratitude to the citizens of the People's Republic of China and their wacky ways.
Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!Here in China, you can truly be whoever you want to be. You are only limited by your imagination.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Anticlimactic Epilogue
Lest you think the entire nation is filled with silly names, take note: among the Canraders, Turbles, and Hooks, the bulk of our colleagues actually have stiflingly uncreative names.
A recent report estimated that 24 million single chaps in China won't get to experience the wonders of wedlock with a fellow Chinese lady (more than enough guys to pair up with, though). There just haven't been enough chicks born (and kept) for these poor bastards to mate with. It seems they've taken this dearth of selection and applied it to their name selection. Judging from my very small sample group at the company (10,000 employees out of a 1.3 billion populace is like 0.000000001%), there's a shortage of male names around here too.
On the far opposite end of the creativity scale, we've got these generic duds. With so many colorful options out there (as you have been reading above), why become yet another one of the faceless millions of Michael Wangs? Even yours truly is not immune: since 2004, when I had to share my name with only one other guy, an explosion of Neils has resulted in a whopping increase over 6 years. Now I've got to compete with thirteen others as of 2010! Whatever happened to strong names like Notebook and Papercup? Copycats, I tell ya....
Apologies beforehand if you happen to be the proud owner of one of these names below; you probably have some unknown Chinese relatives lurking on the family tree.
Kevin (99)
David (79)
Jack (74) (Not including Jacky, Jackson, Jackie, Jackey, of which we've got 61 additional, driving the total up to 135 and the First Place Prize over Kevin...)
Andy (67)
Jason (63)
Stephen (19), Steve (5), Steven (37), Stuphen (meh? 1) (62 overall)
Michael (60)
Tony (57)
Jerry (57... one is a woman, she was removed)
Eric (54)
Frank (50)
Alex (44)
Peter (43)
John (41)
Leo (39)
James (37)
Tom (31)
Daniel (30)
Chris 24 (+3 Christopher) (27 overall)
Jack, the ultimate All-American name, making waves in Shanghai. The rest of the list is filled with similarly classic English names. Surprising then to see Michael and James so far down the list.
The ladies can't even compete with the sheer number of the guys at this company. Like China, our company also seems to have a shocking lack of estrogen. I mean, there's only one Lauren, one Justine, one Margaret, one Natalie, two Stephanies, one Valerie. Most shocking is the nosedive in the figures. The women seem to be far more creative, with no name receiving more than 40 members in its exclusive club. Also, unlike the guys, some of these names are far from conservative.
Variations on "Ann(e)" come up the clear winner, but look below. Sunny, Cherry and Apple? Certainly a revolution in popular naming in our little microcosm.
Ann (7), Anna (14), Anne (6), Annie (11), Anny (6) (44 total)
Sunny (36)
Amy (36)
Jenny (28) (Jennifer? Only 9, making for 37 total and edging out Sunny and Amy)
Lucy (27)
Helen (26)
Jane (22)
Grace (21)
Cherry (19)
Apple (12)
[Editor's Note: Thank you everybody for the support and following the Name Audit from the very beginning!]
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