my name is…
i want to change my english name. most asian can pick their own english name and me too. at a certain age, our english teacher would ask us to have an english name. why a chinese would need an english name? i dont’ know. anyway, most of our parents don’t know many english so this important task would give back to their child. so i have this
unlucky chancesto name myself.i remember i was “diana” when i was… nine years old. i thought this name was beautiful but later princess diana died and there was a local drama about a man who dressed up as a woman named diana. the kids made fun of me because of that. because of peer pressure, i picked another name. “karin”? but later i found that my cousin’s name was calrin and i didn’t want to have the same name so i decided to change my name again. one day i was flipping a magazine and saw a model called “jenya”. i was on my “english name hunt” and was frustrated because i couldn’t find one that i liked. “that’s it!” i thought, “my name will be jenya from now on!” people i met in rp world kept commenting “you’re name is awesome/original!” but the way i found this original name was quite unoriginal.
i like this name, but i don’t like this name at the same time. my real life friends won’t call me by my english name. they thought this name is weird. why? i think it’s super easily to pronounce! “JEN-yah” how hard is it? but one thing has been bothering me is that, it’s a russian name. (two things, actually)and there is a (quite famous, i guess?) nude model (you know what i mean by saying ‘nude model’?). is it okay to have a name that isn’t from your origin? but hmm… what i am talking about? there is no way that i could have a so-called chinese origin english name D:
my surname is lee, which i believe adds the difficulty to find a name that match with my surname. for example, i should never, ever name “lindsay”. cause “lindsay lee” sounds like cantonese “strangle you” (phonogram? is that what it called?) names with “___say” or “___ly” aren’t suitable for me. i mean, “lily” is a nice name, but “lily lee”? x\ screw my surname. i don’t think jenya and lee matches well either.
i’ll be going to a new school this semester. that’s why i’ve been thinking if i need a new english name… any suggestion? or should i just keep the name jenya?
D:
i think, for me, my given chinese name is 樂蓁蓁 (you can read it bahaha), which translated is either jen jen or jean jean (i personally think the person who translated my name thought it was 秦). it says jean jean on my passport? but when i was like, three, my mom made me pick a name, for the same reasons you listed, and since i was three and obsessed with hello kitty, i picked… well, it’s obvious. i think after i got back from canada and came here i had the chance to change my name again and i changed it to “parker”, which got made fun of by my mom. but after i got online i picked the name taylor, i really forgot why but i just loved it. i think it’s quite weird for me to use taylor as my first name since it’s more of a secret identity thing, so i “officially” made it my middle name, since asians (or uhm… asians who live in asia/hk/china/taiwan?) don’t have middle names. or at least i don’t, hello, jean jean. so i made my name jean taylor?
that made no sense. -.-
but i love the name jenya! it’s really original, despite the fact you got it out of a magazine. jean is french, it’s actually a boy’s name in french, “john”. so yeah, you can have names that aren’t your origin! most of the people do, anyways, or else we’d run out of original names. i would say for you to pick an idol that you love, and name yourself after them. quite cheesy. xDD. or, list your favorite names, and pick from there? i think a hard to pronouce name like … calhinya or something, isn’t as good as a nice classy name like jenya. first of all, jenya is easier to spell and remember. second, jenya is easier to pronounce. if i had a friend who’s name was calhinya, i would be like …cal-hin-ya…? which would lead to confusion and such.
this was way too long, but yeah. :]
