Chinese people often choose English names for convenience (easier pronunciation for foreigners), cultural integration (fitting into international settings), and personal expression, much like choosing a nickname or hao in traditional China, with many starting in English classes where teachers assign them to make learning fun. It helps avoid mispronunciation, fosters more informal work environments, and allows individuals to align with admired Western cultural traits or characters.
Most recently, people choose an English name to facilitate doing business with international colleagues, reasoning that it's easier for colleagues to pronounce an English name. Other people think it is a status symbol of education and success, being smart and important enough to have an English name.
It's a common practice for Asian immigrants to take up English names. We adjust so that Westerners can pronounce our names.
The English name "China" was borrowed from Portuguese during the 16th century, and its direct cognates became common in the subsequent centuries in the West. It is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to the Sanskrit word चीन (cīna) for the nation.
al-Sin (الصين) which is where you get references to China as as sine or variations of that in Europe. It still exists in English through words like Sinologist. This word likely derives from the word 秦 or Qin which interestingly in the Tang Dynasty was used to refer to foreigners from West Asia.
Although British imperialism never politically took hold in mainland China, as it did in India or Africa, its cultural and political legacy is still evident today. Honk Kong remains a significant center of global finance and its government still functioned in much of the same ways as it did under British colonialism.
“Gaijin” (外人) is the Japanese word meaning “outsider” or “alien”. It is usually referred to Westerners who are not of Asian ethnicity. Other similar words for foreigners or foreign objects include “gaikoku” (外国) or “foreign country”, or “gaisha” (外車), which means “foreign car”.
The modern standard Chinese name for the United States is Měiguó from Mandarin (美国; 美國, with the first character měi literally meaning 'beautiful'). This is an abbreviated form of the full name Měilìjiān Hézhòngguó (美利坚合众国; 美利堅合眾國).
Among Chinese diaspora residing in Western countries, it is becoming common practice for parents to give their children a Western name as their official first name, with the Chinese given name being officially recorded as a middle name.
Fun fact: Taylor Swift's name in Chinese is Taile Siweifute 泰勒·斯威夫特, a transliteration of her English name. Her Chinese nickname is Meimei/霉霉, which means something like “unlucky,” although to my knowledge it is only used for Swift and not applied to other unlucky people.
Once China established the open door policy under Deng Xiaoping, the popularity of English and other languages began to thrive. English became very popular between the late 1970s to 1990s in areas that dealt with trading and tourism.
One of the two given names was a "generation name". The generation name was usually, though not always, shared by all male or all female siblings of the same generation. The other was a personal name. For example, in the Wong family, two brothers share the given name, You.
Personal names in Hong Kong reflect the co-official status of Cantonese and English in Hong Kong. A total of 25.8% of Hongkongers have English given names as part of their legal names; a further 38.3% of Hongkongers go by English given names even though those are not part of their legal names.
This was common practice among many of the Asian students I grew up with. Changing their ethnic name was a gesture of our willingness to adopt and adapt to American norms. There were those who kept their ethnic names but it came with risk—the risk of being teased by other kids for being different.
The Korean name for the United States, "Miguk" (미국), literally translates to "beautiful country." This name is derived from the Chinese characters "Meiguo" (美國), which were adopted by Korea, and which also mean "beautiful country" in Chinese.
The Chinese internet slang 666 (liù liù liù) basically means “awesome” because the number six in Chinese sounds like “溜” (liù), meaning “smooth”. 666 started as gaming slang to praise a skilled player, like “GG” in English, but is now used generally to praise someone for doing something very impressively or “smoothly”.
Laowai (老外; pinyin: lǎowài; lit. 'old foreigner/outsider') is the word most commonly used for foreigners and is a less pejorative term than guizi.
Together, baka gaijin is a “stupid foreigner.” The expression itself is attested by at least the 1970s in kanji and by 1989 in romaji. It is used by Japanese people for non-Japanese people they think are acting inappropriately. Baka can be insulting or, more mildly, disapproving.
Song dynasty (960–1279) In 960, the Later Zhou general Zhao Kuangyi overthrew his imperial master and established the Song dynasty. Nineteen years later, he had reunified most of China. During the northern Song dynasty, China was the wealthiest country in the world as measured by GDP per capita.