English names. Almost all international students either have one and usually for an obvious reason. If you are Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Malay or Indonesian I imagine there is a limit to how many time you can try and explain how to pronounce your name to your native English-speaking teacher before you just say, “Call me Jack!” But convenience isn’t the only reason that international students take on an English name. Just as you can find Starbucks in Beijing, McDonalds in Mumbai and Nike in Nepal, English names have attained a global status.  And like all of these global icons, English names has been adapted and changed to suit the inclinations and aesthetics of people from all over the world.

 

Whilst teaching in China I was often amazed at some of the English names students had chosen. Download was my favourite. I thought it was hilarious. Although he didn’t come to class very often I would always enjoy calling his name out on the role. ‘Download?’ ‘Here.’ I always imagined that he had seen the word pop up whilst downloading pirated movies and television shows and just thought, ‘Download! That is the name for me!’  

The real reason Download decided to call himself Download will forever remain a mystery to me as I never managed to ask him. However, with a class full of students with some equally interesting takes on English names, I decided it was time to ask a couple of my international students studying in Melbourne about their English names and why they had chosen them.

 

Firstly, there is Fatrica. To my knowledge Fatrica is not a name that has ever been used before. In fact, a quick Google search reveals only one other life form with the name on the planet, that being a cat from Long Beach in America who has had the decency to put a space between Fat and Rica. Fatrica explained that she had been given a name that resembled Fatrica by her French employees, while working for a multinational company in Shenzhen. Having always found the name difficult to pronounce and too long she decided to drop a couple of letters out of the name at random. Leaving her with the name Fatrica. When I first read the name I thought it had been misprinted and so I pronounced it Fatricia, like Patricia but with an F. She said it was the best pronunciation of her name so far and has now adopted this spelling.  Her name is a work in progress, evolving and soaking up new cultural influences.

 

Then there is Marx, the surname of the founding father of Socialism, author Das Kapital and also the first name of a 21 year-old student from Shanghai in my class. Marx seems to love his name as every time it is announced he laughs. However, for him it also means something. Marx, he says, stood for freedom and equality. For Marx, Karl Marx is something of a hero. So the name blends too of my favourite things about why students select their English names.

 

The first reason is that an English name gives you an opportunity to pay tribute to an idea or a hero, perhaps one from Western culture that piqued your interest in the language initially, I have had countless Michael’s named after Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson and increasingly, Prison Break’s Michael Schofield. Secondly, the name provides a playful opportunity to reinvent oneself and experiment with an alternative identity. Variations on spelling or names like Download are further evidence of an emerging global culture, no longer rooted in nationality or ethnicity, belonging to everyone and no-one at the same time.

 

What is your English name, let me know, leave a comment!