Romanising names

[Wei Ting Jen]

In comparison to Chinese names?

This is just the case of Singapore, but Lee Kuan Yew, our esteemed former
Prime Minister, had this thing going on with preserving the "Chinese-ness"
of our names, and ditched his English name "Harry" early on as an example.
So therefore Lee Kuan Yew, not Kuan Yew Lee or Harry Lee (the latter moniker
has in fact been used to disparage or make fun of him). This is purely
hypothetical and anecdotal, but as a result of his brave example, unlike
other Chinese diaspora "islands" like Taiwan or Hong Kong, many Singaporeans
actually don't have English names, and even in the West put their last name
first.

When I first went to the US/wrote for US magazines, I held out too, calling
myself by my last name first. What really forced me to change though was
simply inconvenience - for school forms, bank applications, etc....and too
many people calling me by the wrong name. So I switched, but then now I'm in
Japan I'm last name first again :)

(Jen) Wei Ting @Yamagata




On 10/7/05, Mark Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu> wrote:
>
>
> On Thursday, October 6, 2005, at 02:11 PM, Aaron Gerow wrote:
>
> > Yes, the trend is towards returning to Japanese name order.
>
> I have always wondered what kind of situation led to the reversal, in
> comparison to Chinese names specifically. Does anyone know?
>
> Markus
>
>


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"Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward, You can
only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will
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