Younger Chinese struggle to find right English name

BEIJING -- First she tried "Linda" on for size, but gave it up because her boss was named Linda, too. Then she turned to "Vivienne," for Julia Roberts' character in "Pretty Woman." Soon, though, various Vivians and Viviennes were crossing her path.

So when Wang Wei, a marketer in a Beijing hotel, chose her third English name, she wanted to make absolutely certain it was unique. She found it while shopping in the frozen-foods aisle of a supermarket, and is still answering to it seven years later.

"In China," Vanilla Wang says today, "it really helps to have a name people remember."

China talks of opening to the world, of how the most populous nation is becoming international in epic ways. But it unfolds on smaller canvases, too: Just look at the English names of the younger generation -- names they have chosen meticulously to present themselves to the world beyond China.

They find inspiration in foods (Scallion Liang, a student), in Italian soccer players (Baggio Hua, a mover), in names that evoke centuries past (Ignatius Ding, a government employee) and names that just plain sound cosmopolitan (Harlem Zhao, a waitress, and Echo Wang, an account executive).

It's globalization, on the most personal of levels.

"Foreigners, when they choose Chinese names, go by phonetics. But Chinese prefer something with meaning," said Wang Xuejun, author of the popular volume "Choose English Names."

It also gives young Chinese the opportunity to craft a logo of sorts, something that gives them personality in a sometimes impersonal society -- and that they can find by plundering fashionable Western popular culture.

And plunder they do.

There is Zhao Tianqi, an artist whose wood-block prints were selling well to foreigners. She decided she needed an appropriate moniker, so Colour Zhao, complete with British spelling, was born. "Doesn't it fit just right?" she boasted.

Hogan Sun, president of a 2,000-student language school called Modern English, got his name from a teacher who loved "Hogan's Heroes" on TV and says a woman named Potato recently studied in his program. He attributes the popularity to the growing number of young urban Chinese working for foreign companies.

"Foreign bosses, they don't have time to remember all these Chinese names," Sun says. "If you have a name the boss can remember, you have more of a chance for the boss to choose you for a certain kind of work -- and then maybe get promoted."