By Tiffany Tan (
China Daily) 07:20, March 13, 2014
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When Phantom meets Tears, you can be sure something vivid will happen. Tiffany Tanreports.
How can a person stand out in a country of 1.35 billion? One safe, inexpensive andrelatively stress-free way is to choose an unusual English name.
At least 795 people share Zhang Chaoyu's name, according to the online name databaseIdtag.cn. But how many of them are also called Lavendery? Probably no one but theBeijing high school student, who wanted a "more graceful-sounding" version of "lavender",the English equivalent of her Chinese nickname.
"I'd thought about changing my English name, because Lavendery has more letters thancommon English names, and some Chinese people can't easily remember its spelling," the15-year-old says. "But I love it. It's my unique symbol..
Ji Yanyan feels the same way about Cereal. Of course, it is more commonly found onbreakfast tables than business cards, but there is no doubt her English name makes animpression.
"Both foreigners and Chinese say that it's extraordinary, and people always rememberme," says Ji, 25, an editor with a trade publication in Beijing.
Her name choice was inspired by the 2007 film Flakes, which starred one of her favoriteUS actresses, Zooey Deschanel. The movie title's Chinese translation included "oats", ahomonym of Ji's Chinese nickname and something she loved to eat, so she picked a relatedword with the help of a dictionary.
Chinese people usually get an English name in high school or college English class. Othersget one once they start working and regularly deal with foreigners, who may have troublepronouncing their Chinese names.
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