In modern China, some go to great lengths to look or sound like they hail from the West. One of the quickest, and quirkiest, ways to do this is to give yourself an English name.
Scott Kronick, president of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, had some fun with this phenomenon in a piece for the The Beijinger, an English-language magazine in Beijing, describing the creative monikers his Chinese colleagues have chosen for themselves.
Here are our favorites:
*“We have a Phat Song, who is a bit overweight but as cool as anyone I have met in China.”
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*“The advertising creative team donned such names as Jesus Yeh and Devil Zhou…”
*“When looking deeper into the English names of my colleagues, I was particularly curious about our creative team, as this department is usually the wackiest in our company. I was delighted to find a Chocolate Huang, Popeye Li and Rocky Ren.”
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“If you want a tasty campaign, you can ask for Elvis Xu in our consulting team to serve you..”
“Ironically, our fastest-growing business is run by Pope Li, who has “Morning” Cao, Chairs Chen and even a Shakira Huang working in his office”.
