What's In A Name?

I grew up in California.

California is the epitome of the "melting pot" of America- it gets immigrants from ALL over, either because it's got a huge coastline, or there's the most popular draw....

Hollywood.

But regardless of the reason, I started learning about "diversity" (aka "life") as a kid.  I remember this one exotic girl in my kindergarten class:  Gina.  She had long black hair and tanned skin.  I can't remember now if she was Italian or Pacific Islander.  But she was exotic.

I became so used to different people around me, that it really didn't matter who was in my class: Nuygens and Tchangs and Gonzales and Thompson.  It was just who was in my class.

And you were expected to learn how to say everyone's name correctly.  It must have been just as hard for some Asians to pronounce "Lisa" as it was for me to pronounce Tsuchiguchi (though now that I know the Japanese alphabet, I can spell it correctly on the first try!)

But then I moved to Minnesota.

A.k.a "The great white north".

And they're not referring to the snow.

In Minnesota, the Asians (well, specifically the Chinese) find American names for themselves.
I first encountered this sad custom when I was working as a scientist.  My friend in the lab was advised to do this by the Chinese consulate, believe it or not, and she and her whole family were trying to find names for themselves that meant something similar to their Chinese names.

Of course, that would be a failure from the get-go.

Turns out that Chinese names, at least traditionally, incorporate all aspects of the family:

Family Name, Generation Name, Personal Name

How cool is that?!

So, everyone in the generation might be Xiao+ some other name.

I guess there is something of a similar tradition in America- some families start all of the generation's names with the same letter....but it's not a predictable custom.

I found this an exciting custom and I didn't understand why they would want to throw away their culture.  They told me that the consulate said that Chinese names were too hard for Americans to pronounce.  That made me really sad.

In a land that is supposed to be such a melting pot, it doesn't seem really "melty" to throw away your NAME just because someone needs to be taught how to say it properly.  It seems that when we have something to learn from each other, we open barriers of communication and get past a lot of the suspicion and uncertainty that keeps this nation from truly being a great melting pot.