Their Names Are Legion

By DAN LEVIN

When Hu Yinan meets someone new, say, in a meeting or at a party, she prefers to introduce herself by her English name: Number.
For obvious reasons, it usually takes the uninitiated — those who understand English anyway — a few seconds to overcome the shock.
“Their reaction is ‘Number, uh, really? Why?’” said Ms. Hu, 25, who works as a consultant in Shanghai.
She then explains that the name, which appears on her business cards (alas, not as “#”), is simply a way to help her stand out from the crowd of Chinese who have chosen more generic Western monikers. 

“There are a lots of Amys and Crystals around me. I can’t tell the difference. But there’s only one Number.”
It has been more than three decades since the People’s Republic shed its hermetic Maoist ideology and embraced the outside world. 

To judge from the, ahem, diverse range of English (and Englishy) names adopted by the educated and upwardly mobile, the Chinese appear to be taking it very personally.
In the 1980s, those names were often bestowed by English teachers imported from abroad. 

Some of them, apparently, could not resist the urge to abuse their command of the foreign language. 

One former American teacher confessed to bequeathing his students names like Vixen, Prancer, Dancer, Rudolph, Electrolux and Jello, purely for his own clandestine amusement.
“Every roll call was priceless,” he said.
As those born in the 1980s and ’90s have come of age, Chinese are seizing the opportunity to literally make a name for themselves. 

“Our young people want to be unique,” said Ms. Hu. 

“Why accept a popular or traditional name when you can create one?”
And so it seems that for every Kevin or Jenny, Michael or Amanda, there are countless more with a radical expression of nonconformity emblazoned on their business cards or written at the top of their exam papers.
Take the employee database of a large Chinese company, one of many local firms that advises its workers to choose a Western name for professional use. 

Scrolling down reveals names that might fit in at Downton Abbey, like Dorothy, Mavis and Agnes, while Ignatius and Crassus found inspiration in the golden age of an earlier empire. 

Love ancient mythology? 

Try meeting for coffee with Auberon and Fionnuala, though do not ask Ucifer if he intended to drop the L. Enphiere, Mercharlain, Kunthea and Fandica sound vaguely European, as does Tulipo.
“He thought it was French,” said a co-worker. 

“It wasn’t.”
Then there are Schumy, Scort, Pheemarn, Smallroson, Waterling and Loof, which do not feature anywhere in the historical record.
Such exotic adventures in rebranding may be partly due to the bonds that tie Chinese to their nation’s 5,000 years of history. 

In Mandarin, the phrase for “common people” translates as “old hundred names,” which reflects the homogenous nature of traditional Chinese culture. 

For those seeking individuality, why not go with Wonder or Sweetot or Sparkle?
“A lot of Chinese see picking an English name as a liberating act,” said Jenny Zhu, a founder of OpenLanguage, an online language-training company. 

To Ms. Zhu, who grew up in Shanghai and attended university in Australia before returning home to work as a translator, the widespread phenomenon of picking outlandish names can be traced to China’s headlong integration with the West. 

At such breakneck speed, she said, some things are bound to get lost in translation.
“They may not have the cultural understanding to know there’s a very fine line between creative and ridiculous,” she said.
Whether a name inspires confidence or triggers a face palm depends on one’s perspective. 

For years, Pan Miu, 27, called herself Milk. 

The English word sounded similar to her Chinese name and also happened to be the title of a popular Hong Kong magazine she adored in high school. 

It was only when Ms. Pan moved abroad for a job in public relations that she discarded the professional dairy reference.
“I was told Milk wasn’t appropriate for working with foreigners,” she said.
Occasionally, the charm of a foreign alias is enhanced exponentially when combined with a Chinese surname. One has to hope that the 17 professionals named Green Gu listed on the networking Web site LinkedIn are in on the joke. 

Fancy Ho, however, might be dismayed to learn of her reputation in the world of hip-hop.
And yet, the Chinese have only to look abroad for inspiration. 

The Malaysian pop star Fish Leong recently made waves in China after she was praised by President Xi Jinping. 

In the United States, Americans named Messiah, Francelot and Nevaeh (read it backward) have made the news, along with Sarah Palin’s unforgettable children, Bristol, Trig, Track and Willow.
Like Ms. Palin, the failed vice presidential candidate, Chinese are passing the fad on to the next generation. Paul Afshar, 30, encountered this next stage in China’s cultural evolution on his first day as an English teacher in Beijing last winter. 

“This kid walks into class and said, ‘Hi, my name is Reuse,’” he recalled. 

Convinced the child was mispronouncing a more conventional name, Mr. Afshar approached his father. 

“He said, ‘Yes, his name is Reuse, and my name is Recycle.’”
Reuse was soon joined by Demon, Bumblebee, Police Car, Kitty, Hello Kitty and Dollar, a little boy whose mother said she wanted him to succeed in business. 

Clean and Tidy were not related, though Mr. Afshar sat them together anyway. 

Those names he could kind of understand, but Inside It’s Raining proved more confounding. 

Unfortunately, the boy’s father refused to elaborate even after repeated questioning.
“At that point, I figured it was probably best not to push,” Mr. Afshar said.