I’m deliriously captivated by the post-World War II tradition among Chinese communities across Asia of appropriating Western personal names. My slack-jawed fascination is purely sociological and duly respectful – firstly, I’m a fanboy of extreme cross-cultural pollination (where would we be without Soy Milk Cappuccino or Vietnamese hip-hop?); and secondly, with a moniker like ‘Jafwan’ – a non-gender, culture, religion or even species specific abomination sloppily improvised by my newbie (and possibly high) parents, I’m hardly in a position to carry out drive-by shootings of others’ names. I’ve also been piqued by heady conversations I’ve had on the subject with ethnic Chinese acquaintances who bear their lyrical, Sino-oriented names with ferocious pride.

Generic Anglo-Western appellations like Cindy, Joanne, Elaine, Alicia, Alan, Kevin, Alvin, Terrence and Michael (followed by slightly-dissonant surnames like Ong, Tay, Cheong, Lim and Yap) appear to hold the greatest sway among Malaysian Chinese. But over the years, I’ve also had the slap-me-silly delight of crossing paths with the glorious likes of Valentino, Carrington, Pinky, Étoile (French for ‘star’), Fish, Joaquin, Kenix, Bowie, Moses, Rain, Xena and Licky (a deliberate corruption of ‘Ricky’). Whatever the name, most are either self-chosen or school peer-imposed, with few being bestowed by parents at birth (hence the reason why most Malaysian Chinese’s Western monikers aren’t officially registered, and are therefore AWOL from their birth certificates and ICs). Owners of some of the extravagantly-unique, invariably self-devised monikers mentioned above have provided rationales for their singular sobriquets: Carrington is a ‘Dynasty’ fan, Étoile’s name (the meaning of which she has no clue) sounds closest to her Chinese moniker, and Rain is a profuse sweater. I’m also reminded of a stunning Miss Chinatown Malaysia contestant from several years ago who explained that she christened herself Avocado because she once had a dream about the fruit (which she had never tasted).

What I find most intriguing about many Chinese bearers of Western names (both the commonplace and atypical varieties) is that they are Chinese in, quite literally, all but name. Most don’t live ‘Western’ lifestyles, few profess the Christian religion, and quite a number aren’t all that fluent in the English language (or any other language of European provenance). Which brings me to the prickly issue of pronunciation: in Malaysia, for instance, the classic Anglo name Eunice (‘yoo-niss’) is incorrectly pronounced ‘yoo-nees’; while Sebastian (‘sebas-chin’) is criminally enunciated as ‘sebas-tee-an’. This brings to mind an incident related to me by a Chinese friend (with the gorgeous Sino moniker ‘Ee-Ling’) while out shopping a few years ago. In the midst of browsing a shop’s merchandise, she was approached by a clingy, overbearing sales assistant (we all know the type) who introduced himself as ‘Envelope’. Bemused, Ee-Ling requested that he repeat his name (producing the same result), after which she was reduced to asking him how it was spelt. Turns out, ‘Envelope’ had been mispronouncing his own name, which was Everett. Others like Everett – pronunciation-challenged Chinese bearers of Western names – have found a way around the problem: select a standard name, then alter its spelling to such an off-kilter, fanciful degree that NO ONE would know its proper pronunciation. Hence, we have such confections as ‘Cony’ (Connie), ‘Deniss’ (Denice), ‘Viliam’ (William) and ‘Polien’ (Pauline).

If one were to, err, name names, and trace the genesis of the region-wide trend among ethnic Chinese of adopting Anglo-Western names, then Hong Kong – a former British colony which rose to international financial centre status long before the rest of Asia could catch up – would be it. In the past, I had read (and guffawed till Milo spewed out of my eyes) about a Kowloon man with the surname Ha who had cheekily appropriated, as his first name, the word ‘Pubic’; and a celebrated, high-flying outdoor advertising executive who christened himself Billboard Kwok. But I only recently learned that the fad in taking tremendous creative license when picking out Western names has reached epidemic proportions in the territory. Hong Kong is now a riot of eyebrow-raising monikers: Magnum, Bunny, Helicopter, Whale, Vitamin, Prada, Silence, Wasabi, Kinky, Dolphin, Rolex, Magic, Shark, Never and Echo are just some of the otherworldly sobriquets registered with Hong Kong’s Immigration Department. And the penchant for exotic appellations isn’t limited to the hoi-polloi – the current Secretary for Justice is Rimsky Yuen, while the former Secretary for Food and Health was York Chow.

Playing almost as fast and loose with Western names are the frightfully-creative Taiwanese, whose constellation of Mandopop megastars include Alien Huang, Yoga Lin, Show Luo, Kingone Wan, Elva Hsiao, Rainie Yang and Harlem Yu. Among the island’s plebeians, names like Ashtray, Lunch, King Kong, Equation, Owl, Anesthesia, Rainbow, Goldfish, Potato, Gucci and Ultraman have gained currency over the years, as have deliberately misspelled-words like ‘Decembr’, ‘Februar’, ‘Samanfa’ and ‘Umblella’ (go figure).

As to why the head-scratching trend for ‘gweilo’ names arose in the first place, mildly amused cultural historians, linguists and anthropologists have suggested that newly-ascendant ethnic Chinese are subverting past colonial pressures to conform to Western standards by seizing and ‘owning’ something distinctly Occidental, cutting it to measure, and subsuming it into their own Oriental personas. Whatever the reason, and in spite of my admiration for traditional Sino names, I gleefully cheer on my Chinese brothers-from-another-mother in their quest to autonomously define and expand their own identities in an age when everyone has to strive to ‘make a name for themselves’.