The Adoption of non-Chinese Names as Identity Markers of Chinese International Students in Japan: A Case Study at a Japanese Comprehensive Research University

Abstract

This study explores naming practices among Chinese international students and their relation to personal identity during their sojourn in Japan. Although previous studies have reported that some Chinese international students in English-speaking countries adopt names of Western origin (Cotterill 2020; Diao 2014; Edwards 2006), participants in this study were found to exhibit different naming practices: either adopting names of Japanese or Western origin; or retaining both Western and Japanese names. Drawing on fifteen semi-structured interviews with Mainland Han Chinese students, this investigation examines their motivations for adopting non-Chinese names and determines how personal identities are presented through them. The qualitative analysis reveals that the practice of adopting non-Chinese names is influenced by teacher-student power relations, Chinese conventions for terms of address, pronunciation, and context-sensitivity of personal names. As will be shown in this article, through the respondents’ years of self-exploration, their self-adopted non-Chinese names gradually became internalized personal identity markers that allow the bearers to explore and exhibit personality traits, which might not have been as easily displayed via their Chinese given names.

Keywords:

• Chinese students
• Japan
• Japanese names
• English names
• anthroponym
• identity

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my appreciation to the three anonymous reviewers for Names and Professor Dr. Nick, the editor-in-chief for Names. Their help and insightful comments were highly appreciated.

Disclaimer

China, Chinese, and Chineseness in this paper are cultural ideas. Anything related to politics is beyond the scope of discussion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Future Asia Program, Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Global Society, Kyushu University.

Notes on contributors

Jinyan Chen

Jinyan Chen is a PhD candidate at Kyushu University, Japan. His areas of interest are sociolinguistics, identity, personal names, and language and culture.