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Black1495 t1_j4luqoc wrote

Reply to comment by humboldt77 in TIFU by changing my name by [deleted]

there are 2 girls at my work in a similar situation, both of them have to change their names to something less "etnical", I know their old names and have used them in casual situations, like drinking or something, but when it comes to work stuff I always use their "work names"

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captain-melanin t1_j4mx0tb wrote

Where do you work where a name can too ethnic?

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raz0rflea t1_j4n1thc wrote

In Australia they do it all the time, which honestly I just feel is bowing to ignorant racists who think they can't pronounce "Rahul" because their three brain cells are struggling to keep up autonomous functions and be an entitled bigot at the same time, but anyway it does happen a lot.

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[deleted] OP t1_j4oaoj4 wrote

[removed]

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raz0rflea t1_j4ocfjj wrote

You don't need to "pronounce all sounds of all languages" to make an effort to remember a person's name for fuck's sake. That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard 🙄

I can't speak Macedonian, but when I met my friend Vlatko I didn't say "no that's too hard, we're going to call you Bill" like he was told the first day of school when he moved here.

Also, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that someone knows how to pronounce their own name better than you do.

Self-awareness is a thing you might want to look at evolving some time, mate.

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NightDragon250 t1_j4ouwv6 wrote

no i know plenty of people that got a name from their parents because "it looked so pretty", or "i like the way it sounded"(when they never heard it but sounded it out and liked that.) i went to school with a girl named Siobhan, and she and her parents pronounced it See-obe-han. i had to tell her, in highschool, that it was shiv-on.

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raz0rflea t1_j4ovkm3 wrote

By high school she's calling herself Seeobean or whatever because that's what she wants to be called...is it weird? Yes. Is it not how it's normally pronounced? Yes. But it's still her name she's had from the time she was born, you just gotta adapt to it at this point.

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NightDragon250 t1_j4ox40h wrote

actually she hated see-obe-han. when i showed her how it was an irish name pronounced shiv-on she was ecstatic, her mom not so much.

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orosoros t1_j4p0n7x wrote

That's so sweet! She got a fresh name without the bureaucratic hassle of changing it

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my_n3w_account t1_j4oohz0 wrote

If you think you can pronounce YOUR name which is written in MY language because your mum lived in MY country when she was young better than me, you're a moron.

Also, I never said it's ok for you to decide a name for other people. I just explained why many foreigners decide to change their name cause most people don't care to pronounce their name properly and, for some, they prefer to be called something else entirely rather than a butchered version of their real name.

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YungSchmid t1_j4n0gim wrote

A lot of people with Chinese ancestry give themselves a ‘western’ name in my country. Probably for a number of reasons; makes them (and closeted racist people) feel like they fit in, easier to remember, people can spell and pronounce it, etc.

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mungalo9 t1_j4naxlj wrote

Chinese names can be really hard to pronounce for westerners. Especially since pinyin doesn't translate to English pronunciation 1:1. it's often easier to give a new name rather than have your name mispronounced for the rest of your life

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StatisticianLivid710 t1_j4p6iyb wrote

This, I’ve made an effort to learn how to pronounce Chinese names, but will call them their western names if they prefer. Sadly company I was working for required their legal names as opposed to their western names, but since they didn’t have middle names on ID I would put their western name as the middle name for east recall

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NTGenericus t1_j4nk0jx wrote

All of my Chinese friends except one have given themselves Western names. They say it just makes things easier.

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iwillc t1_j4rt84h wrote

Is the same true for western people that end up in China? Do they create Chinese names for ease? (Serious)

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NTGenericus t1_j4rwspd wrote

I actually have no idea. But that's a really good question. In Hong Kong probably not since English is (or was) one of the official languages. I couldn't even guess about the rest of China.

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DrFox247 t1_j4o3mp2 wrote

The Chinese friends I have usually just use the English translation of there name, unfortunately sometimes it does not translate well

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ars0nisfun t1_j4n42rs wrote

This is way more common than you think. I've seen this all over the place in Canada/US/Europe/etc.

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zombiesandpenguins t1_j4on90j wrote

Not work, but in my high school it was common for international students to choose a more “American” to go by, for many of the reasons other people listed, but I always think of my former Korean exchange classmate whose name basically sounded like “young bum hung” if you tried to pronounce it with an American accent. For obvious reasons, that would have opened up the doors to A LOT of teasing if that’s how he introduced himself to a hundred teenagers, so he went by David instead

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ttopsrock t1_j4nwxte wrote

I think it's a pronunciation thing... I've met plenty of people named Joy or Sara because their names were very long and hard to pronounce. Sometimes shortened sometimes changed entirely. African and Indian names I've seen here in Texas.

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