Finding your perfect English name

Zhang Chaoyu chose the English name Lavendery because of the English equivalent of her Chinese nickname. Photos provided to China Daily

But how they end up with some of these English names is what gives this endeavor its "Chinese characteristics".

Many mainlanders are given conventional English names by their teachers, or end up with common ones that sound like their Chinese names (for example, David for Dawei and Tracy for Cui Li).

A good number adopt the names of foreign celebrities or fictional characters, including Lebron (James, the basketball player), Eminem (the rapper), and Peter for a man surnamed Pan.

The rest go with whatever word appeals to them, including adjectives (Vivid), verbs (Happen), animals (Dolphin), brands (KFC) and common nouns (Tears). Even the criminally related (Killer) is fair game.

Some prefer names that belong to the opposite sex, such as a college girl named Jesse and a male business manager called Venus.

Then there are the creative types like Tauver, an airline employee who came up with a name rooted in her astrological sign Taurus, and the parents of 3-year-old Arwenry, who merged the name of a character in the novel The Lord of the Rings (Arwen) with part of their daughter's Chinese name (Rui).

But nothing screams unique like Uniqueen. The combination of "unique" and "queen" can be attributed to a Beijing teenager who wanted a name more memorable than Angel.

After three years of dealing with such peculiar English names at a college in eastern China, John Pasden finally said, "No more".

"I told them they had to change their name," the native of Tampa, Florida, said in a May 2004 entry on his blog. "They would often protest, saying they had used the name for years already. I would tell them, 'Well, you can keep it, but you can't use it in my class. Pick a real name.' Then I would hand them a big, long list of popular baby names that they could choose from."