In a University of Hong Kong telephone survey of 2,049 people in 2014–15, 64.1% said they had an English name, and 66.4% of those used it "always" or "most of the time". In Canada, a study of young East Asians observed that most Chinese and Korean students had an English name alongside their own, while Japanese students seldom did. It set out to test the usual explanation, that the names are for Westerners who struggle to pronounce the originals, and concluded that the habit is "as much a cultural phenomenon as a pragmatic one".
So there is no rule for how to pick one, and the question most people type, whether an English name should sound like your Chinese name or share its meaning, has no right answer. The research describes three routes people actually take: a name that echoes the sound of their Chinese name, a name chosen for its meaning, and a name handed to them in an English class. It does not rank them. What it does show is who did the choosing.
Given in a classroom
Many people never chose their English name at all. A 2014 study of mainland Chinese students at a US university described students who had "received their English names from ESL classes in China". A 2020 study of young adults in Taiwan starts from the same point, with names "assigned to them in English class".
The Taiwan study, by Ivona Barešová and Marcel Pikhart, then asks why people keep a name they did not pick, long after school. The reasons were practical, giving them an international identity, an escape from rigid formality, a friendly but not-too-close persona, and a way to express themselves. It also found that the unusual names in its sample were used mainly as nicknames among friends.
Given at home
In Singapore the English name moved into the family and onto the birth certificate. Peter Tan's 2006 study of the names in a Singapore school yearbook found more English given names than the traditional pattern would suggest, and Chinese given names increasingly based on Mandarin rather than on other varieties of Chinese such as Hokkien or Cantonese. Surnames were the exception: families kept Tan, Lim, Ng and Teo in their dialect spelling, and Tan described "strong resistance" to standardising them. Our guide to Chinese ancestry in Southeast Asia explains where those spellings came from.
The birth registration rules reflect that mix. Under the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority's rules, a Chinese name in characters is optional, a hanyu pinyin name is optional, and if the pinyin name is included it appears in brackets and carries through to the passport. Parents who want to change a child's name can apply online before the child's first birthday.
Chosen for oneself
When people choose for themselves, the documented habit is sound. A 2015 study of 248 university students in Taiwan by Lindsey Chen found "homophonization", picking an English name that sounds like the Chinese one, to be common among both men and women, and concluded that the choice was "partly motivated by a sense of identity preservation". A 2024 study of 357 mainland Chinese students found a different priority: uniqueness, a name that would set them apart from their peers and be remembered. Choosing by meaning is the least studied of the three routes; none of the research we read measured how often people do it.
A name generator can be useful for finding a sound-alike, but it can also mislead. We tested our own English name generator, which matches the sound of a romanised name against English names from US birth records, and in September 2026 it had three faults. Typed as a whole name, surname first, "Tan Wei Ling" returned Daniel, while "Wei Ling" alone returned William: the surname changed the answer in all 12 of the names we tried that way. It read the pinyin initials q and c as an English k, so Qi came back as Kim. And every name typed in Chinese characters got the same answer, Edward, or Elizabeth under the feminine setting. All three are now fixed: a surname in front no longer changes the result, Qi gives Jim, and the generator asks for a romanised spelling instead of guessing. Other generators may still match the whole string you type, so with any of them, type your given name only, spelt the way it is on your IC, and say the result aloud to an English speaker before you use it.
Meanings need more care than name sites give them. We took 50 names from the generator's list, the 25 most popular and 25 at random, and checked the meaning it stores for each against Behind the Name, an etymology reference that cites its sources. Thirty-nine held up, and four more were fair simplifications. Five stated an uncertain etymology as fact; the meaning of Mary, for one, is not known for certain. Two gave a folk etymology that the reference contradicts: Candace comes from a title held by ancient queens, not from a word for "white, pure". Until September 2026 the generator also replaced many stored meanings with theme labels, which turned Robert, "bright fame", into "intelligence". If a name's meaning matters to you, verify it with a reference that shows its sources.
Written onto an identity card
A name you use at work and a name on your documents are different things, and our guide to Chinese given names covers the point that an English name is not official unless it is on the document. In the Hong Kong survey, 25.8% of respondents said their English name was on their identity card.
Adding one later is a formal step. In Singapore, the ICA's list of documents for updating an IC includes a deed poll for a change of name, or a baptism or religious certificate for a religious name. Hong Kong's Immigration Department asks for documents relating to the change of name, such as a deed poll. In Malaysia, the national registration department lists a religious conversion certificate for a name change that comes with a change of religion. A mainland Chinese passport records the name in characters and standard pinyin; a foreign name can only be added as an annotation.
Taiwan allows an English alias on the passport, and its rules show how permanent that choice is. Say a woman named Lin Mei-hua adds "Vivian" to her passport. Under the Passport Act Enforcement Rules, the alias has to carry the same surname as her romanised name, so it reads Vivian Lin, and the given name has to be one in ordinary use. When she renews, she is expected to keep it. Our guide to Taiwan passport names explains the romanisation rules around it. The English name she picks at 20 is the one she will likely have on her passport at 50.
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