老外提问：为什么许多中国人取英文名字时，要保留中文姓氏？
社会和国际化接轨，在生活中无论是学习还是事业上，取英文名字都越来越普遍常见，许多人认为英文名字既洋气时尚，也能助运发展。在美版知乎Quora上，美国网友提问道：为什么许多中国人取英文名字时，要保留中文姓氏？这引起各国网友的围观和热议，我们看看他们的观点。
问题
中国网友Viktor Hu的回答
Many Chinese choose English names for themselves so that Westerners (more specifically, English speaking Westerners) can pronounce them more easily. Because if we paint real names like Wang Ming and Zhao Hong You can't understand. Even if we write our names in pinyin, you English speakers will never bother to learn how to pronounce. You always make mistakes or forget how to pronounce. We need to teach you every time.
许多中国人为自己选择英文名字，以便西方人（更具体地说，说英语的西方人）更容易发音。因为如果我们写真名，就像王明，赵红….你根本看不懂。即使我们用拼音写我们的名字，你们这些说英语的人根本就不会费心学习如何发音，你总是发音错误，或者忘记如何发音，我们每次都需要教你。
In other words, the vast majority of Chinese choose English names out of courtesy to your English speakers. When we try to communicate with you and do business with you, we will try our best to make your work easier. You should all accept it with gratitude, instead of thinking that we should have done this, or that the Chinese did it because we didn't like our names.
换言之，绝大多数中国人选择英文名字是出于对你们说英语的人的礼貌。当我们试图与您沟通，与您做生意时，我们会尽力让您的工作更轻松。你们都应该带着感激之情接受它，而不是认为我们本就应该这样做，或者中国人这样做是因为我们不喜欢自己的名字。
Why do we keep our last name? Because most Chinese surnames are single words and easier to pronounce, we think these Westerners can certainly learn how to pronounce "Wang, Chen or Zhao" surnames. Because the name is very important, it is our first label. We really hope to keep the integrity of the name when it is romanized. Because surnames transcend ourselves, they represent our connection with our families, and changing surnames has a significant impact on people's identities.
我们为什么保留姓氏？因为大多数中国人的姓氏都是单字，而且更容易发音，我们认为这些西方人肯定可以学习如何发音“王、陈或赵”这些姓氏。因为名字很重要，它是我们的第一个标签，我们真的希望在姓名罗马化时保持名字的完整性。因为姓氏超越了我们自己，它代表了我们与家庭的联系，而改变姓氏对人们的身份有重大影响。
So, the next time you see a Chinese (or any other person from a non English speaking country whose name is obviously Anglo Saxon), you should be a little grateful and respectful, because they must show you a lot of respect.
所以，下次当你看到一个中国人（或者任何其他来自非英语国家但名字明显是盎格鲁-撒克逊名字的人）时，要有一点感激和尊重，因为他们肯定对你表示了很多尊重。
海外网友山姆•卡尔蒂克的回答
This is actually a very interesting question. If we carefully observe the global Chinese community in the past 100 years, we can better understand why Chinese people usually prefer to communicate with foreigners using English names plus Chinese surnames, no matter where they come from.
这实际上是一个非常有趣的问题。如果我们仔细观察过去100年来全球华人社区，我们可以更好地了解为什么中国人通常更喜欢使用英文名加上中文姓之类的名字与外国人交流，无论他/她来自何方。
Let me make it clear: Wong is not a Chinese family name, it is just a way of spelling English (Cantonese romanization system), so that non Chinese people can pronounce the real Chinese family name wang. We can also spell it as "wang" in the phonetic system. In most cases, this can be used to judge whether the person is from the mainland. Peter is added in front of Wang to ensure that non Chinese people can easily communicate with him, whether his real name is Wang Wangcai or Wang Laifu To some people, this sounds much better than their own Chinese names.
我先说清楚一点：Wong不是一个中国姓氏，它只是一种英文拼写方式（粤语罗马化系统），让非中国人发音类似于真实的中文姓氏wang，我们也可以在拼音系统中把它拼写成“王”，在大多数情况下，这可以用来判断这个人是否来自大陆。在王的前面加上彼得是为了确保和非中国人可以轻松地与他交流，无论他的真名是王旺财或王来福. 对一些人来说，这听起来比他们自己的中文名字要好得多。
Nowadays, if people in Chinese Mainland work in foreign companies, have business dealings with foreigners, or even have business dealings with Chinese people from Hong Kong / Taiwan, China / Singapore / Malaysia, they are more likely to use English names. These names may come from their primary/middle school English teachers, or they may be completely fabricated. Sometimes, these names do not have universal significance as "names", such as Apple Zhang, Liu Orange, Gu Gechen, Wang Fei, Zhao Xiaotu, Happy Zhu... No Chinese people will really take these names seriously, because they know they are just code names, not as meaningful as their Chinese names.
如今，如果中国大陆的人在外国公司工作，与外国人有业务往来，甚至与来自中国香港/中国台湾/新加坡/马来西亚的中国人有业务往来的话，他们更可能使用英文名称。这些名字可能来自他们的小学/中学英语老师，也可能完全是他们编造的。有时，这些名字作为“名字”并不具有普遍意义，比如苹果张、柳橙、谷歌陈、王飞、赵小兔、快乐朱……没有中国人会真正认真对待这些名字，因为他们知道这些只是代号，不像他们的中文名那样有深厚的意涵。
The use of English names in foreign countries will hide your Chinese identity to some extent, and the preservation of surnames can avoid this.
在外国使用英文名会在某种程度上隐藏你中国人的身份，而姓氏的保存可以避免这一点。
Take Jimmy Locke, Mr. Locke's father, for example. His real name is Luo Rongshuo. When he was born in a small town in Guangdong Province, China, he had no English name. When he was 13 years old, he and his family came to the United States. All registration documents must be in English, including his name. Later, he spelled his name Youh K. Locke.
以骆家辉先生的父亲吉米·洛克为例，他的真名是骆荣硕.。当他出生在中国广东省的一个小镇时，他没有英文名字。13岁时，他和家人来到美国，所有登记文件都必须使用英语，包括姓名，后来他把自己的名字拼写为Youh K.Locke。
Later, he studied in a high school in Seattle, and then joined the United States Army as a staff sergeant (chef). He fought in Normandy and many other battlefields. But his English is still poor. People don't want to talk to him, and then they simply change his name to James, which makes him fully integrated into American culture. We don't know whether he chose the name of James voluntarily or was just assigned the name, but this is the official document signed by James for the rest of his life.
再后来，他在西雅图的一所中学就读，然后加入美国陆军，成为一名上士（厨师），他在诺曼底和许多其他战场上战斗。但是他的英语还是很差，人们不愿意和他说话，然后干脆把名字改成了詹姆斯，这让他彻底融入了美国文化，我们不知道他是自愿选择詹姆斯这个名字，还是只是被分配了这个名字，但这是他后来余生的官方文件里都是签署的詹姆斯。
印度尼西亚网友阿尔文的回答
I don't know whether Chinese people all over the world are like this, but Chinese people in Indonesia may have their reasons:
我不知道是否世界各地的中国人都是这样的，但在印度尼西亚中国人可能有他们的理由：
1. Indonesia once prohibited the use of Chinese names, and even formally stipulated the obligation of Indonesian Chinese to change their names. In order to retain their surnames, Indonesian Chinese usually change their names to Indonesian/Western/fictitious names, which are vaguely similar to their Chinese surnames. Therefore, surnames like "Pek" become "Putih", "Ang" become "Angka", "Lim" become "Salim", "Tan" become "Tanu", etc.
1.印尼曾禁止使用中文名称，甚至还有一种正式规定印尼华人更改姓名的义务。为了保留自己的姓氏，印尼华人通常会将自己的名字改为印尼/西方/虚构的名字，这些名字与他们的中文姓氏模糊相似。因此，像“Pek”这样的姓氏变成“Putih”，“Ang”变成“Angka”，“Lim”变成“Salim”，“Tan”变成“Tanu”，等等。
2. It is prohibited to learn and speak Chinese. Therefore, the second and third generations of Indonesian Chinese cannot give their children Chinese names. In any case, you cannot name them in a language you do not understand.
2.禁止学习和说汉语。因此，第二代和第三代印尼华人不能给自己的孩子起中文名字，无论如何，你不可能用你不懂的语言来命名。
3. It is prohibited to celebrate and embrace Chinese culture. In Indonesia, people are required to have religious beliefs, but you can't say that you only accept sacrifices to Chinese ancestors, because this is prohibited. Therefore, Indonesian Chinese usually adopt Buddhism and use Buddhist/Sanskrit names, such as "Dharma", "Ratna", "Yoda" and "Kusuma", or they use Christian names and Baptist/Western names, such as "Charles", "John" and "Maria".
3.禁止庆祝和拥抱中国文化。在印度尼西亚，人们被要求有宗教信仰，但你不能说你只接受祭祀中国祖先，因为这是被禁止的。因此，印度尼西亚华人通常采用佛教，并使用佛教/梵语名称，如“达摩”、“拉特纳”、“尤达”、“库苏马”，或者他们采用基督教名称，使用浸信会/西方名称，如：“查尔斯”、“约翰”、“玛丽亚”。
4. Recently, these prohibitions have been abolished and are no longer valid. But what has been done is irreversible. Therefore, if you see that Indonesian Chinese use non Chinese names, this is evidence of racial discrimination against Chinese.
4.最近，这些禁令被废除了，不再有效。但木已成舟，后果无法挽回。所以，如果你看到印尼华人使用非中文名字，这是对华人种族歧视政策的证明。
美国网友韦恩的回答
I have taught English to Chinese students. They tend to use what they call "English names" to promote communication with foreigners. People often think that foreigners may encounter difficulties in Chinese pronunciation. You should notice that when Chinese people mention their English names, they refer to the names they use when speaking English, not necessarily English names. Most people use names that are known by English users, but names in other languages are also common, such as Japanese, French, etc.
我教过中国学生英语。他们倾向于采用他们称之为“英文名”的方式来促进与外国人的交流，人们经常觉得外国人可能会在中文发音方面遇到困难。你应该注意到，当中国人提到他们的英文名字时，他们指的是他们在说英语时使用的名字，而不一定是英文名，大多数人使用的名字都是英语使用者知道的，但其他语言的名字也很常见，比如日语、法语等。
There are some interesting stories about Chinese people using English names. One of them didn't stay long in our school. Although I only taught her once, her story left a deep impression on me. The protagonist in my novella Social Murder was named after her. When I saw the name Merlin on the agenda that day, I naturally thought it was a man. Although considering that Chinese names often have no gender distinction, it may be a thoughtless assumption in hindsight.
有一些关于中国人使用英文名字的有趣故事。有一个在我们学校待的时间不长，虽然我只教过她一次，但她的故事给我留下了深刻的印象，我的中篇小说《社会谋杀》中的主角就是以她的名字命名的。当我那天在日程上看到梅林这个名字时，我自然而然地认为这是一个男人，尽管考虑到中文名字往往没有性别区分，事后看来，这可能是一个轻率的假设。
She explained that she chose Merlin because it was close to her real name. I like this kind of acceptance, obedience and strange Chinese combination. It seems that she has reluctantly accepted the convention of choosing western names when speaking English, but she will not deviate from her true Chinese identity!
她解释说，她选择梅林是因为它接近她的真名梅林。我喜欢这种接受、服从和奇怪的中国组合，似乎她已经勉强接受了在说英语时选择西方名字的惯例，但她不会偏离自己真正的中国身份！
Another student of mine, too, simply transliterated his Chinese name into English. His surname was Wang, which simply translated into King. If he stepped into Britain and introduced himself as "Wang", it would bring him some social difficulties. In addition, the course I taught him was business English, so he obviously hoped to have international exchanges.
我的另一个学生也是如此，简单地把他的中文名字音译成英文，他姓王，简单翻译成了King，如果他踏进英国，介绍自己为“王”会给他带来一些社会困难。此外，我教他的课程是商务英语，因此他显然希望能够进行国际交流。
Less common names are also popular among Chinese students. We occasionally hear the seasonal names "summer" and "autumn" used by women (especially in the United States). Chinese people often use them. I also know a man named "winter". The strangest example I remember was a guy who wanted a name that no one else had. He named himself "bike", and he was not wrong. Until today, I have never met anyone else calling a bike! I also met women called crayons and penguins, which is very interesting.
不太常见的名字也受到中国学生的欢迎。我们偶尔听到女性（特别是在美国）使用的季节性名称“夏天”和“秋天”，中国人经常使用，我也认识一个叫“冬天”的男人。我记得的最古怪的例子是一个家伙，他特别想要一个别人都没有的名字，给自己起了个名字叫“bike”，而且他没有错，直到今天，我还从未遇到过其他人叫自行车！我也遇到过叫蜡笔和企鹅的女人，挺有意思的。
However, generally speaking, most people use common western names. Men tend to choose traditional and popular names, such as Chris, Daniel, David, Michael, Peter, etc; Relatively speaking, few people deviate from the correct name. Women's choices are often more diverse and can be divided into several distinct groups:
不过，一般来说，大多数人都使用普通的西方名字。男性倾向于选择传统流行的名字，如克里斯、丹尼尔、大卫、迈克尔、彼得等；相对而言，很少有人偏离正名。妇女的选择往往更加多样化，可分为几个截然不同的群体：
• English names that are no longer popular in the English world, such as Christine, Doris, Ivy, Joyce, Monica, Nancy, Veronica and Vivian. I often wonder if these names were given to my old friend Kathy, who was older and divorced from reality, in his childhood, because these names rarely reflect the true character of these people.
•在英语世界不再流行的英文名字，如克里斯汀、多丽丝、艾薇、乔伊斯、莫妮卡、南希、维罗妮卡和维维安。我经常想知道这些是不是像我的老朋友凯西这样年纪较大、脱离实际的老师在童年时给他们起的，因为这些名字很少反映这些人的真实性格。
• Names more common in non English languages, such as Anya, Freya, Mia, Mira, Nadia and Yolanda.
•在非英语语言中更常见的名称，如安雅、弗雷亚、米娅、米拉、纳迪亚和约兰达。
• Names similar to Asian names and/or words, such as Eva, Fay, Lily, Lin, Lucy, Sue, Suki and Sun.
•与亚洲名字和/或单词类似的名字，如伊娃、费伊、莉莉、林、露西、苏、苏基和孙。
The above list is not exhaustive, but if you know how many Chinese "English" names are, you will understand.
上面的列表并非详尽无遗，但如果你了解中国人的“英文”名字有多多样，你就会明白。
Back to the original problem, when they adopted western names, the Chinese did not westernize themselves. We sometimes have a habit of thinking that the views and attitudes of Chinese people are very traditional. This may be because China, as a whole, has made great efforts to emphasize its traditional Chinese identity, but Chinese people are much more modern than we think. They are more sensible about the wider world than you expect. Chinese people are very proud of their personal identity, and their family relationships are very strong, Therefore, a Mr. Huang will never call himself Mr. Smith to adapt to foreign life.
回到原来的问题，当他们采用西方名字时，中国人并没有将自己西化。我们有时有一种习惯，认为中国人的观点和态度非常传统，这可能是因为中国作为一个整体，非常努力地强调其传统的中国身份，但中国人比我们认为的现代得多，对更广泛的世界的方式比你所期望的更明智，中国人对他们的个人身份非常自豪，他们的家庭关系非常牢固，所以一个黄先生永远不会为了适应国外生活而自称史密斯先生。
Basically, the English names of Chinese people are very similar to the nicknames used by many people in close friend groups. The only difference is that Chinese "English" names are not used for strict informal and social occasions, but are specifically used to communicate with the wider non Chinese world.
基本上，中国人的英文名字与许多人在亲密朋友群中使用的昵称非常相似，唯一的区别是，中文“英文”名字不是用于严格的非正式和社交场合，而是专门用于与更广泛的非中文世界交流。
I used to think that Chinese people used different names to speak English so easily, while similar oriental cultures, such as Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, rarely did this except when they actually lived in another country, especially when they were born or grew up in another country; But for the Chinese, using different names is part of learning English.
我曾经认为，中国人如此轻易地采用不同的名字来说英语，而类似的东方文化，如日本、韩国、越南等，除了在另一个国家实际生活，尤其是在另一国家出生或长大时很少这样做；但对中国人来说，采用不同的名字是学习英语的一部分。
However, when you get to know the Chinese people, you will realize that there is almost no obligation to choose to abide by this custom, which is usually a form of self-expression; A way to establish your identity. Most Chinese people's real names, like other people's names, are partly chosen according to their parents' preferences, and partly to ensure that the child can integrate into the society he or she will grow up in - anywhere in the world.
然而，当你了解中国人时，你会意识到，选择遵守这一习俗几乎没有义务，这通常是一种自我表达的形式；一种建立自己身份的方法。大多数中国人的真名，就像其他人的名字一样，部分是根据父母的偏好选择的，部分是为了确保孩子能够融入他或她将要成长的社会-在世界任何地方。
Most Chinese choose an English name that reflects how they want the world to see them; The Chinese are far from the timid and submissive Asians in popular western folklore. They are a nation with a proud heritage, which constitutes a large part of their personal identity, but they are not restricted by tradition. As a nation, the Chinese people are full of confidence in their position in the world.
大多数中国人选择一个反映他们希望世界如何看待他们的英文名字；中国人远非西方流行民间传说中的胆怯、屈服的亚洲人。他们是一个拥有极为自豪的遗产的民族，这些遗产构成了他们个人身份的很大一部分，但他们不受传统的限制。作为一个民族，中国人对自己在世界上的地位充满信心。
Finally, I like young students to use a name that is easier for them to teach foreign idiots how to pronounce. When you consider how arrogant Westerners are to other cultures, it has a poetic sense of justice!
最后，我很喜欢年轻学生采用一个更容易让他们教外国白痴如何发音的名字，当你考虑到西方人如何傲慢得对待其他文化时，这有一种诗意的正义感！
