Stories of names: exploring Chinese high school language-other-than-English learners’ foreign name(s) usage and its role in multilingual identity construction

ABSTRACT

Names serve as a rudimentary bond that connects us to the world. The relationship between language learners’ foreign names adoption and their identity construction has been receiving increased attention. With most studies conducted in English-learning contexts, this study contributes to this line of research by adopting a multilingual framework to explore the role of name choices in the construction of Chinese high school language(s)-other-than-English learners’ multilingual and linguistic identities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten students who studied multiple foreign languages, focusing on their self-perceptions in relation to different names and their stories of identity negotiation through name usage in various social and linguistic settings. Findings show that names are vehicles of meaning that transmit messages to both the bearer and the people around them. The learners adeptly navigated among names of different linguistic origins, which enriched their identity as multilinguals. The choice, creation, adoption and rejection of foreign names reflected learners’ agency along with their struggles as multilingual learners and users on various sociocultural levels. It is argued that learners’ usage or non-usage of foreign names and their multilingual identity share a co-constitutive relationship and that names reflect, perform and shape the bearers’ multilingual identity.

KEYWORDS:

• multilingual identity
• language learner identity
• LOTE learning
• names and identity
• multilingualism

Introduction

Being one of the simplest yet most effective answers to the question ‘who are you?’, names are among the first things that the world knows us by. Contradictory to the belief that one’s birthname should be the bearers’ essential identifier, constant and transportable across time and space, the naming practices in Chinese foreign language classrooms are fluid and context-dependent (Edwards 2006). Many would take on a foreign name when they start learning a language. Names of different linguistic origins, given or self-chosen, with some or no phonological or semantic connections to the bearers’ birthname, are used in a customary manner. While it is the norm for Chinese language learners to have one or more foreign names (Chien 2012; Huang and Ke 2016), similar practices are not common for other groups of East-Asian students (e.g. students of Japanese and Korean ethnicities) with perceivably equally ‘exotic’ and ‘hard-to-pronounce’ birthnames for Westerners (Heffernan 2010). Given the inextricable connection between names, languages and identity, it would be of interest to explore what language learners wish to communicate through the usage or non-usage of foreign names in relation to their self-perceptions as multilingual learners and users.

In contrast with many other countries, where most people take on readily-made names, naming is more creative in China as people usually invent unique names by combining preferred characters. Since Chinese is a logographic language, the characters chosen are innately imbued with meanings. Characters with auspicious meanings are selected and combined, demonstrating individuality and cultural refinement (Henry 2012). Therefore, the names, carefully chosen by parents or elder relatives, carry and manifest wishes and hopes from the family. The cultural richness of Chinese naming practices thus gives rise to the question of why many Chinese foreign language learners choose to take on foreign names for language classes and international encounters.

Meanwhile, as increasing numbers of Chinese students choose to enrich their linguistic repertoire by learning languages-other-than-English (LOTEs) (Gao and Zheng 2019), the stereotypical ‘monolingual English learner’ figure became a decontextualised simplification in many situations (Barratt 2018). While most existing studies investigated learners’ English names usage and English speaker identity, this study adopts a linguistically-inclusive approach to explore the relationship between language learners’ name choices and the construction of their multilingual identity. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Chinese high school students who studied multiple foreign languages, focusing on their self-perceptions in relation to different names and their stories of identity negotiation through name usage in various social and linguistic settings. By analysing the choice, creation, adoption and rejection of names, this study demonstrates learners’ agency along with their struggles as multilingual learners and users on various sociocultural levels and discusses the role of foreign name(s) adoption in reflecting, acting and shaping the learners’ multilingual identity.

Literature review

Names, language learning and identity

Names are interpretive and categorising tools for sense-making (Pilcher 2016), coded in and expressed through languages. Our names, when placed in social settings, not only serve as referential symbols but also act as rudimentary bonds that connect us to the world, indexing our social positions (Henry 2012). Studies conducted in various contexts, including the deaf community (Day and Sutton-Spence 2010), online gaming groups (Crenshaw and Nardi 2014) and the transgender community (Wentling 2020) demonstrate that the adoption of new names often denotes and entails changes in a person’s self as well as their social connections (Finch 2008).

In line with Norton’s (2013, 45) definition, this study conceptualises identity as ‘how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space and how the person understands possibilities for the future’, which is contextually constructed and ever-evolving. The relationships between names, language and identity are complex and multi-levelled, having been explored theoretically and empirically through various disciplinary lenses. From a critical perspective, names are entangled with power, enacting cultural and social recognition at the instance of interpellation (Butler 1997). Names that do not fit stereotypical sociocultural categories and normative assumptions held by the recipient community can raise questions regarding the bearer’s cultural background, ethnicity and religious affiliation, creating not only senses of non-belonging, but also institutional discrimination for the bearer (Madziva 2018). The vessels for the names, languages, are ‘vulnerable to challenge and redefinition’ (Bucholtz 2016, 275). To maximise communicative efficacy, language learners’ birthnames sometimes undergo phonological alteration or are replaced by more conventional names in the target language society. In this sense, the learners who use foreign names are understood as victims of linguistic hegemony, often with erased identities in the face of the dominant language.

Nevertheless, studies show that language learners’ name changes are not always passive but demonstrate their agency and ingenuity when faced with the macro-level linguistic ideologies that link Western names with modernity, economic and social prestige (Diao 2014; Lie and Bailey 2017). Some suggest that the naming practices in Chinese foreign language classrooms can be better explained with a postmodernist framing of identity, which constantly changes and adapts to the context (Edwards 2006). Name changes do not necessarily lead to identity change but reflect identity elasticity (Emmelhainz 2012). In Taiwan, English names are found to help construct an additive, glocal identity rather than replacing the bearers’ original linguistic identities (Huang and Ke 2016). Meanwhile, intentional usage of non-local names becomes a strategy among Chinese business professionals to emphasise their global vision and openness to intercultural communication (Duthie 2007). The bearers directed this message not exclusively to foreigners, but also to Chinese audiences, aiming to elicit recognition of membership among like-minded individuals (Henry 2012). This also connects to the neoliberal discourse and the phenomenon of ‘elite multilingualism’ (Barakos and Selleck 2019), where access to and mastery of particular linguistic resources reflect and generate capital and prestige. Within this narrative, increasing numbers of Chinese students choose to enrich their linguistic repertoire and enhance their future status by learning more foreign languages. Their foreign names in a way communicate the cultural capital and resources they possess and aspire for to not only the target language community but also the society they live in.

Tension is also spotted between the language learners and the target language speech community. In language classrooms, foreign teachers are stereotypically perceived as ‘the Other’ with little knowledge of their students’ cultures, while the students are expected to adopt English/Latinised names, often imposed by teachers (Sercombe et al. 2014) to satisfy basic communicative needs. Nevertheless, it is noted that foreign names enable the interlocutors to bypass the rigid social hierarchy in Chinese tradition. Foreign names, which are received as less distancing than surnames or honorifics while less personal and intimate than first names, create a ‘third space’ (Kramsch 2006) where people can keep the ‘safe-closeness’ to maintain friendliness while keeping personal distance in international encounters of various levels of formality (Baresova and Pikhart 2020). Lastly, on a personal level, foreign names can facilitate some learners to claim ownership of the target language through constructing an imaginary identity that is connected to the target language/international community to which they may lack access in reality (Li 2009).

Existing scholarship demonstrates the inextricable relationship between language learners’ foreign names and their identity from different angles. Foreign names give clues about the bearer’s language abilities, cultural compliance, membership and symbolic power, which therefore reflect learners’ negotiation and struggle over cultural differences, linguistic autonomy and the right to self-definition (e.g. Cheang 2008; Edwards 2006; Henry 2012; Kang 2022; Madziva 2018). While most studies examined how name usage reflects and indexes one’s identity, the other direction, namely how names of different linguistic origins can in turn influence one’s identity construction, is rarely explored systematically, with most discussions limited to theoretical inferences or incidental findings. For instance, Alia (2006), referring to the labelling theory (Becker 1973), argues that names serve as psychological labels which motivate the bearer to behave accordingly. Meanwhile, elementary school English learners in Taiwan reported adopting English names made them feel like native speakers and had a positive impact on their English learning attitude even if they did not know the meaning of those names (Chien 2012), which seems to suggest that having a foreign name can help learners to identify with target language and culture. As empirical evidence remains fragmented, whether and how foreign name usage might shape the learners’ identity needs further investigation.

Language learners’ multilingual identity and foreign name(s) adoption

To date, most studies regarding foreign name(s) adoption and language learner identity are carried out in English learning settings, focusing on learners’ English-speaker identity. This, however, becomes problematic as English names gradually decoupled from English competence and English-speaker identity, increasingly received as a symbol of internationality and globality (Orton 2009). There is also an emphasis on loosely defined ‘English names’ (Cotterill 2020), which sometimes refer to any name written in the Latin alphabet, including Japanese names in English transliteration (Baresova and Pikhart 2020). Learners of language(s)-other-than-English (LOTE), who usually have more contact with different languages and cultures, might be more sensitive about the origins and etymologies of names and thus some might be able to distinguish names with different linguistic origins. If this is the case, names from different languages might be associated with different or different aspects of the bearer’s linguistic identity/-ties.

To better construe the relationship between names and identity in LOTE and L3(+) learning contexts, we need a more inclusive framework that is capable of accommodating the added complexities arising from learner’s experience with and competence in multiple languages, instead of limiting our scope to identities associated with specific languages. This study therefore chooses to focus on language learners’ multilingual identity, which refers to one’s general self-perception as a multilingual and awareness of one’s multilingual repertoire (Fisher et al. 2020, 2022). Being a part of learners’ general identity, multilingual identity is also conceptualised as dynamic and contextually-constructed, subject to multi-levelled influences ranging from those psychological/ intra-mental, socio-relational to those cultural-historical. It is a higher-level identity that encompasses and transcends lower-level linguistic identities, more stable and constant in presence (Fisher et al. 2020). This level of abstraction thus allows a holistic conceptualisation of learners as multilinguals and global analyses of their language-related identities, enabling a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of multilingual learners’ name choices as well as their relationship with their linguistic repertoire and the multilingual world they live in.

This study explores the relationship between Chinese LOTE-learning high school students’ multilingual identity and their usage of names of different languages, aiming to provide a more comprehensive picture of the phenomenon by adopting a multilingual framework and focusing on the two-way relationship between names and multilingual identity construction. Furthermore, unlike existing research conducted in study abroad (e.g. Baresova and Pikhart 2020; Cotterill 2020; Schmitt 2019), immigration (Chiang 2007; Lie and Bailey 2017; Madziva 2018), professional business (Duthie 2007) contexts, this study looks at foreign language learning context, where the target language is not widely used in the society and the learners have few chances to speak the foreign languages outside of school. This indicates that foreign names might be strongly associated with classroom-based interactions (Edwards 2006) and have more future-oriented characteristics (Henry 2017). The research questions are as follows:

RQ 1: How do Chinese LOTE-learning high school students perceive their names of different languages in relation to their identities?

RQ 2: What is the role of foreign name(s) usage in learners’ multilingual identity construction?

Methodology

Given the subjective and nuanced nature of learners’ multilingual identity, the study took a qualitative approach and adopted interview as the main method of investigation, underpinned by interpretative phenomenological analysis (Eatough and Smith 2008). Firstly, the indexicality of qualitative data contextualises the individual in the social terrain, enhancing the precision of analysis and interpretation. Moreover, qualitative analysis allows in-depth, multi-levelled examination that preserves the complexity embedded in the name-multilingual identity relationship, as well as the texture of learners’ experience (Brinkmann, Kvale, and Lincoln 2018). Rooted in phenomenology and hermeneutics, the two aims of interpretative phenomenological analysis, ‘giving voice’ and ‘making sense’, express concern with the identities of both the participants and the researcher (Noon 2018). The high levels of conceptual abstraction of multilingual identity forbid direct, universal and definitive answers. It is thus important to acknowledge the central role of interpretation and the duality between the participants’ and my meaning-making as a researcher. The purposive reflection on and shifts of interpretive perspectives required by interpretative phenomenological analysis provided a possibility for me to make theoretical claims by contextualising subjectivity into its context without neglecting the participants’ lived experiences (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009).

Context and participants

The study was conducted in an international high school in a second-tier city in Eastern China. The school adopted international curricula (e.g. A-levels and IB) and most students would attend universities overseas. The school’s academic threshold for entrance was similar to that of average high schools. Yet since the tuition fee was significantly higher than the public-school standards, the participating students were more likely to come from families with higher socio-economic statuses. Besides the more conventional English strands, which prepared students for universities in Anglophone countries, the school also offered German and Japanese programmes, where the students received German and Japanese lessons and applied to universities in respective countries. Some students from the English strand also took extracurricular LOTE lessons to apply for universities in non-Anglophone countries or programmes with requirements on LOTE proficiencies. The students were required to register with an English name upon enrolment, which would appear in all their certificates and transcripts alongside their birthnames (Chinese). Since changing the registered English name was troublesome and could only happen at the start of an academic year, most students stuck to their registered name throughout high school although they might use other foreign names in informal occasions.

A short questionnaire (Appendix A) was distributed to aid participant selection. After background questions about gender, age and language learning history, the students were encouraged to list all the names perceived important to them, regardless of linguistic origins, and provide information concerning the time of naming, the names’ linguistic origins, time and contexts of usage as well as whether they know the meanings of their names. Twenty-four completed questionnaires were collected from 15 female and 9 male students, each listing an average of 4.08 names from 2.54 linguistic origins. When selecting participants, I sought to preserve a balanced diversity within each factor to enhance the richness and variation of data collected (Suri 2011). Ten participants (age 15–17) were chosen for the subsequent interview. Table 1¹ shows information about the participants and names discussed during the interviews.

Table 1. List of participants.

Participants (pseudonyms)	Gender	LOTE learning experience	Names discussed
			In use	No longer in use
Elli	Female	French	Birthname, one foreign name (English/French), one online alias
Taro	Male	German	Birthname, one pen name, one nickname, one foreign name (English/German), one foreign nickname (English/German)	Name given by grandfather (never used)
Grace	Female	German, French	One Chinese name, one English name, one German name, one online alias	Birthname, one French name
Dimm	Male	German	Birthname, one English name, one German/English name, one online alias (English)	One English name
Xiu	Female	German	Birthname, one foreign name (English/German), one online alias	One English name
Windy	Female	Japanese	Birthname, one English name, one online alias	One English name
Pauline	Female	French	Birthname, three nicknames, one English name, one French name	One English name
Curry	Male	Japanese	Birthname, one nickname (Japanese), one Japanese name, one English name, one online alias (English)	Two English names
Jenny	Female	Japanese, Korean	Birthname, one English name, one Japanese name, one Korean name	Two English names
Neysa	Female	Japanese	Birthname, one English name, one online alias (English)

Interviews

The individual interviews were conducted remotely via an online meeting platform due to the school closure under COVID-19 outbreaks. The interviews were semi-structured and the participants were encouraged to share stories about their names and provide comments on each name. The prompts (Appendix B) were open-ended, allowing learners’ expression of subjectivity. Guided by the name list they filled out, the participants recounted the occasions of naming, the meaning of the names and significant experiences relating to the names. If it did not surface organically in their story-telling, I would ask about their perceptions of each name, including their preferred appellation in certain contexts, how much they identified with each name and what information they thought was conveyed through the names to them and other people. The interviews closed with general questions about their perceived significance of having names in different languages. All interviews were conducted in Chinese, the first language of both parties, mixed with occasional foreign words.

Data analysis

The interview recordings (16–35 min) were transcribed verbatim and imported into NVIVO for coding. The coding process was iterative, with increased levels of abstraction. I started with descriptive notes, focusing on the plot of the stories provided and the meaning-making of the participants to gain a global, coherent view of the data and achieve sympathy with the participants. The second round of coding included categorical codes, such as ‘meaning-birthname’, ‘naming occasion-German name’ and ‘identification-English name’, grouping information according to themes. Then, contents were re-read and compared on basis of the categorical codes to find connections and analytical structure. Analytical codes, including ‘identity enrichment’ and ‘national affiliation’, were developed. Lastly, with the hierarchical structure of codes mapped out, synthetic higher-order themes emerged, which constituted the outline for the findings and discussion section. In each round of analysis, efforts were made to reflect both my and the participants’ positionalities, distinguishing my interpretation from the participants’ voices (Smith and Osborn 2008). The final report is therefore acknowledged as a joint narration by me and the participants.

Ethical considerations

The fact that the study focuses on the names of adolescents requires utmost caution on ethics and the participants’ right to confidentiality should be foregrounded (Sterling and De Costa 2018). Consents were sought from the students, their parents and the school’s gatekeepers. To protect the privacy and anonymity of the participants, the official Chinese names of the participants will not be mentioned. Most names appeared in this manuscript are pseudonyms. The participants’ real nicknames and foreign names are presented only with permission from the participants and their guardians, subject to modifications to make the names untraceable to readers. In cases where the participants insisted on keeping the names’ original forms, I made sure that the participating parties understood and accepted the potential risks involved. Relevant excerpts and accounts were sent back to each participant, ensuring the content was acceptable for all parties.

Findings

This section presents the key findings emerged from the analysis, which mainly address RQ1 through participants’ testimonies of their lived experiences and serves as a basis for discussion around RQ2. The findings are organised by theme and are punctuated with participants’ accounts.

Names-self paring: seeking unity and flexibility

Regarding the referential property of their names, the participants believed that regardless of the names’ linguistic forms, contexts and frequencies of usage, they all referred to the same entity–themselves. Although most reported behaving differently when called by different names, they attributed this to the contexts, both linguistic and sociocultural, of the appellation.

Excerpt 1: Only my close friends and relatives call me ‘Taro’, so I feel … warm and relaxed upon hearing it. When they address me by my full name, I get all tensed up, fearing I have done something stupid. ‘Thomas’ is somewhere in the middle, like, for school and stuff. (Taro)

Excerpt 2: I can have different names in different countries and different names for different occasions, but eventually they all represent me, the same person. (Windy)

In those instances, they performed, consciously or unconsciously, different aspects of their identity, which did not undermine the unity of their global self-perception. Having new, foreign names did not seem to jeopardise their original identities, but was deemed as an opportunity for and manifestation of identity flexibility and enrichment, helping them to explore and express their potential.

Excerpt 3: Maybe having names in different languages makes me feel more ‘diversified’. They all have different meanings, as if there are different versions of me—I can express different personalities using those names. Those aspects of me are not identical. (Dimm)

For the participants, using foreign names did not equate to rejecting their Chinese names. Six interviewees stated that they preferred presenting foreign names in parallel with Chinese names during international encounters. Chinese names symbolised their nationality, which they took great pride in. They believed that this statement of nationality would function as a stable source of comfort and strength when they study abroad. They also saw their Chinese names as good conversation starters given their uniqueness, the meanings they carry and the cultural significance behind Chinese naming practices. A good introduction of their Chinese names could enhance interpersonal relationships and promote Chinese culture. Meanwhile, presenting oneself with two names was also seen as a friendly, pragmatic concession in cases where the interlocutors find their Chinese names too challenging to pronounce. By doing so, they could assert their national identity while politely protecting their Chinese names from unwanted mispronunciations.

The participants actively asserted their unity of identity by imbuing personal traits into the names they chose. One common strategy was to seek phonological or semantic similarities among the names, which might appear subtle and indirect to others. For instance, Grace’s English name and German name all began with ‘G’, which was the initial of her Chinese surname. She also disclosed that if she were to have a new French name, she would pick one in line with this uniformity. Jenny commented that she felt more psychologically connected to her Japanese name and Korean name, which she created on basis of the transliteration of her birthname, than to her English name that was chosen by her father, with no connections to her other names.

Given vs self-chosen foreign names: autonomy and identification

Since most participants received their first foreign names, usually English names, when they were little, they did not have the opportunity to choose. Elli, Dimm, Windy and Curry later rejected the imposed English names and re-named themselves. The imposed names were described as lack of personal meaning, mundane and disposable. The names were often chosen arbitrarily by the teacher or parents, leaving no place for the learner’s agency.

Excerpt 4: It’s like she (the teacher) was flipping through a telephone book and you came along asking for a name. She would point to the first name on the page and say, from now on you will be called by this name. This was so awkward, [the name] didn’t have meaning for me at all. Maybe I had many English names growing up for different English courses, but for me, those are not my names. (Elli)

Even when the learner could choose, the decisions were often hasted and with limited choices. Xiu recounted that her primary school English teacher asked them to pick their names from a list. Because she sat at the back of the classroom, the only name left for her was ‘Helen’, a name that ‘wasn’t me [her].’

Having a foreign name seemed to be a ‘rite-of-passage’ for many language courses, even if the teachers were Chinese. Though the learners were usually required to announce their foreign names in the first session, many teachers would still address them by their Chinese names in subsequent lessons. This made the participants question the necessity of having foreign names for those classes. While the teachers and parents deemed it ‘fashionable’ and ‘classy’ for kids to have foreign names, the learners themselves never perceived those names as such.

The learners felt more in harmony with their foreign names if they were self-chosen with sufficient deliberation. They took pride in their new names and saw them as expressions of personality and even chances to project desired self-representations. Pauline was dissatisfied with her Chinese name, whose pronunciation, in her opinion, was too ‘heavy’ and ‘complicated’. She was convinced that her Chinese name represented a figure that was nervous and indecisive, which contributed to her subliminal hesitance when faced with choices. Although she admitted that her Chinese name could better represent her personality, she preferred her French name, ‘Pauline’, which sounds ‘normal’ and ‘less-burdened’, both were characteristics that she would like to possess as a person. She commented that ‘Pauline’ could help her to escape from entangled thoughts and find inner freedom.

The identification with new names is a process; initial misfit can be mitigated as more connections are established between the names and the bearer through usage. Those who did not reject the given names became ‘used to’ and ‘comfortable with’ this way of addressing.

Excerpt 5: I did not know she (the teacher, nationality Japanese) was calling me; the name didn’t ring a bell and I had to take time to process it. The whole class was silent and she stared at me with expectation, then I realised (she was calling me)—but now I am used to it, took me a couple of weeks. (Curry)

Excerpt 6: He (her dad) probably saw it (Jenny) from some TV programme. I was slightly annoyed by it because it somehow reminded me of a sportive and tanned American girl—very different from how I would picture myself. But now I would not change it. I am known by this name and it’s not worth the hassle. I guess I just got used to it and so did my friends and teachers. (Jenny)

As shown in the excerpts, the initial indifference, alienation and mismatch that the names elicited in the learners weakened as they were more and more received as and known by their new names. The name-bearer connections were further concretised with the name’s repeated appearance on the front page of their books, in their signatures and on their transcripts. In a way, the learners re-defined and claimed ownership over those names with their personal experience, presenting a mutual enrichment for both the name’s meaning and the bearer’s identity.

Names as vehicles of meaning

Names served as vehicles of meaning that constantly convey information to the bearer and people around them. While Chinese names better represented the participants’ overall identity, foreign names and nicknames were deemed more context-dependent with different significance at different times.

Excerpt 7: Subconsciously, I think I name myself ‘Grace’ or ‘Greta’ just to cope with English or German. ‘Grace’ and ‘Greta’ can be other people, but my Chinese name represents just me. (Grace)

The participants, except Pauline, reported having stronger ownership of their Chinese names even if they were given by other people. Many attributed this to the uniqueness of their Chinese names and the meanings embedded. As the meanings of foreign names were less evident to the participants, they sensed less authority over those names and were more adaptive to different interpretations of their foreign names.

Foreign and nicknames were often used to express the participants’ mental states and preferences of a specific period, which could be a nostalgic reminder of special memories.

Excerpt 8: Maybe they (the names) would remind me that, for example, I learnt Japanese and I have been to those places, evoking memories from different stages of my life. (Curry)

These names therefore functioned as testimonies of the learners’ past and cues that activate certain aspects of identity, often characterised by the bearer’s relationship with specific people. Taro only used his penname when writing letters to his only pen-pal who was his classmate from middle school. This penname was therefore tightly associated with his identity as a pen-pal, his memories from middle school and the medium of letters. It had the power to transport him into a virtual tempo-space of his past.

Meanwhile, some of the messages passed onto the bearer can be very personal and subjective, even hard to rationalise. The following quote describes Windy’s understanding of her English name.

Excerpt 9: I think ‘Windy’ appears to me as someone who loves reading—I don’t know why. Also being an adjective, it seems very colourful and it can modify and embellish nouns. I want to embellish others. I am not keen on taking the lead. (Windy)

Some participants would deliberately take on names that represented certain desirable identity characteristics. Xiu and Curry took their foreign names from their favourite book character and basketball player respectively, expressing their wishes to become more like the original name bearer. They felt encouraged and empowered when the names were called as the appellation connected them to their role models. The names also brought about a sense of responsibility as they would guard the names’ reputation and not ‘take the names in vain’.

Names also convey information to others. Many participants believed that having and using foreign names not only proved one’s previous contact with and knowledge of the language(s) but also expressed one’s openness to and interest in the target culture(s). The participants took pride in their LOTE names, which were seen as manifestations of their multilingual and intercultural stance. This stance was inevitably associated with the multilingual education they received and the varied linguistic capital they possessed, distinguishing them from people who had no contact with LOTEs.

Excerpt 10: Names give you definitions in different contexts, with those definitions, you can carry on to do different things in this context. They are like gate passes. (Pauline)

Foreign names symbolised a recognised membership, which positioned the bearer and confers respective agency. In this way, having and using foreign names became a gesture to show one’s wish for recognition and acceptance, an effort to facilitate the bearer’s adaptation to the target language community.

Discussion

This section examines learners’ personal stories in the larger sociocultural contexts and problematises how multi-levelled factors conditioned the unravelling and interpretation of those stories, presenting a more in-depth discussion around RQ2. I argue that names of different languages reflect, perform and shape the bearer’s multilingual identity. The relationship between those names and the learner’s multilingual identity is bidirectional and mutually constitutive.

Understanding the ‘story’ in the ‘Story’: names reflect multilingual identity

The data show that each name, even the ones that the bearer struggled to identify with, contained personal stories regarding its origin, meaning, representations, personal significance, contexts and frequencies of usage. These stories grew in the big ‘Story’, a nexus of social, cultural, political and ideological realities, which served as parameters for interpretation. Meanwhile, the personal stories endowed abstract macro-level language-related ideologies with texture and details. The big ‘Story’ and its value system thus give us cues on a person’s relationship with different languages and cultures through the linguistic forms of their names: having names in specific languages demonstrates that the bearer not only had been in contact with the languages, but also had the opportunity and need to use such names. Those names therefore corroborate to reflect the configurations of the bearer’s multilingual identity in their past, present and possible futures.

The macro-level linguistic ideology helps explain the perceived necessity for students to have an English name which brings little pragmatic benefits in the classroom. When the traits reflected by the names are deemed as desirable in a society, the bearer receives further social recognition (Lie and Bailey 2017). As the neoliberal discourse framed English competence as a cherished asset, representing modernity and a cosmopolitan identity in this globalised world (Block, Gray, and Holborow 2013), the teachers and parents were prompted to associate English names with ‘fashion’ and ‘class’. This belief was then translated into pedagogical practices, concretised in educational institutions, making having an English name a rite-of-passage for learners.

Another issue concerns the participants’ attitude towards the possible mispronunciation of their Chinese names, which connects to the critical discussions around power, authenticity and ownership (Bucholtz 2016). The participants had clear plans of name usage in various contexts, prepared for various degrees of birthname-related communicative difficulties. Such act demonstrated the students’ intentional efforts in promoting international communication, while pointing to the question of why mispronunciations were perceived as common or even expected. Here, the students took on the responsibility or even obligation to accommodate the needs of non-Chinese (see also Weekly and Picucci-Huang 2022). This circles back to the debate on the Eurocentric and post-colonial ideologies of positioning non-Western cultures and deciding what is ‘foreign’ (Hall 2015) as well as how language learners are habitually framed as an outsider by the target language speech community (Norton 2013). These struggles were acutely felt by the participants. Nevertheless, data shows that the plans given by the participants were not mere passive concessions but agential and strategic assertions of their multilingual identities, which will be discussed in the following section.

Becoming the story-writers: names as an act of multilingual identity

The participants intentionally performed their multilingual identity through creating, choosing, using and rejecting names, actively taking the pen in their story creation. Through this process, they expressed, defined and positioned themselves in the ‘Story’. The participants’ self-chosen names demonstrated multi-levelled creative engagement with their multilingual repertoire. They also proactively coordinated the different identity aspects associated with different names by finding similarities and coherence among them. By choosing foreign names with phonological or semantic connections with their Chinese names, the participants constructed a sense of coherence that connected the names and subsequently, organically assembled different aspects of their linguistic identities, as shown in Grace’s story. This arrangement was not so much a message to the others than a private statement of self-assertion. Those subtle connections, though rarely picked up by other people, constantly reminded them of and displayed the unity of their selves.

This leads us to rethink the act of imposing foreign names in pedagogical settings and learners’ resistance to those imposed names. Faced with a senior figure, the learners were assigned a seemingly random foreign ‘label’ which would function to represent them. This brusque negation of agency naturally stirs up discomfort and a sense of misplacement. If unable to mitigate this tension over time, the learners would re-claim their agency by rejecting the imposed name when possible.

Usage of foreign names should not be simplified as compliance and concession to the dominant linguistic ideology, as in many cases it demonstrated the bearer’s autonomy in self-definition. The participants welcomed having foreign names and interpreted it as an act of proclaiming their engagement with the language and a public acknowledgement of their enriched multilingual identity. On the other hand, Chinese names, especially surnames, were strongly associated with the participants’ national and ethnic affiliations. These names were internalised into their embodiment, inseparable from their skin, accent and bodily movement (Pilcher 2016). The participants’ desire to share their Chinese names and their meanings and their efforts in protecting those names from mispronunciations in international encounters were acts of evidencing their national identity and active statement of their membership in the Chinese community. By stating their Chinese names, the participants themselves also receive strength and a sense of belonging from this sociocultural affiliation.

The co-authorship: names influence multilingual identity

While names can be used to reflect and perform multilingual identity, they also in turn shape identity development, contributing to the composition of personal stories. The meanings carried by the names, when received, can subtly condition the bearers’ perceptions of themselves, their states of mind and reactions when they are called. It is not rare for parents to express their expectations of and wishes for the next generation through naming, hoping that the names would lay the foundation of a certain identity (Aldrin 2017) if not affect their children’s fate directly (Watzlawik et al. 2012). The messages embedded in learners’ Chinese given names were strongly felt by the participants as they sensed the obligation to live up to those expectations. They were reportedly more sensitive to the discrepancy or misalignment between their current self and the figures represented by their Chinese names. Choosing one’s foreign names granted bearers the opportunity to establish and strengthen the connection between their current self and their ideals, as shown by the stories of Pauline, Windy, Xiu and Curry. By choosing these names, the bearers made statements of their identity goals; the names, in turn, contextualise the bearers, connect them with those goals and prompt them to behave in a certain way to reach these goals. Though it was found among Korean university students that English names may trigger native-speakerism-related shame and guilt (Kang 2022), perceived foreign language competence did not seem to affect our participants’ ownership over their foreign names.

As stated by Pauline, the existence of foreign names was perceived as inherently influential as it positions the bearer, delineates their rights and enacts approval for action from both the bearer and the communities they interact with. The analogy of a ‘gate pass’ suggests admission, which may lead to enhanced ownership that the learners have over the target language. This gate pass also ‘defines’ the bearer’s membership, stating boundaries and limitations, which are renewed and reinforced through appellations. The interactions with and exchanges of names shape the bearers’ perceptions of themselves as multilingual learners and users as well as how they are perceived by others.

It is worth noting that the meanings of names are not static (Watzlawik et al. 2012). As bearers undertake social interactions with the names, they constantly enhance the name-bearer connection and update how the names are perceived, understood and memorised by themselves and others. This is testified by Curry and Jenny, who gradually claimed ownership over the initially less-fitting names. Meanwhile, learners can change and recreate the context of interpretation through agentic actions, such as by resisting certain appellations (e.g. the rejection of first English names), to enrich and redefine the messages carried (e.g. Windy’s interpretation of her English name). The stories, documenting the bearers’ ongoing negotiation over meaning and ownership, were composed under the co-authorship between the names and their bearers, which also testified to the exchanges between and the co-development of both parties. The names, therefore, both testified and contributed to the bearer’s multilingual identity development.

Conclusion

This study explored the role of foreign names in Chinese high school LOTE learners’ multilingual identity construction within a linguistically-inclusive framework (Fisher et al. 2020). Ten learners shared stories of their names and their perception of different names in relation to their identity. Findings show that names are vehicles of meaning that transmit messages to both the bearer and the people around them. The learners could adeptly navigate among names of different linguistic origins, which enriched their identity as multilinguals. The choice, creation, adoption and rejection of foreign names reflected learners’ agency in multilingual identity construction along with their struggles. It is argued that learners’ usage or non-usage of names in different languages and their multilingual identity share a co-constitutive relationship and that names can reflect, perform and shape the bearers’ multilingual identity.

The study extends our knowledge through in-depth examinations of the complexity encapsulated in learners’ foreign name(s) adoption from a linguistically-inclusive perspective. Usage of names with different linguistic origins is inextricable with learners’ multilingual identity construction and should be understood as a result of the bearer’s negotiation with varied sociocultural factors functioning on multiple levels. This urges us to rethink the taken-for-granted practices in language classrooms, including the requirement of a foreign name for registration, imposition of foreign names and mispronunciation of learners’ names, and how these practices might enhance or undermine learners’ multilingual identity development and their perceived ownership over the target language(s). Given the critical role of schools in foreign language learners’ multilingual identity construction (Wu and Forbes 2022), it is vital to highlight the interactive relationship between learners’ stories and the ‘Story’, reflecting on how and what kind of macro-level narratives are transmitted through classroom practices. Practitioners should approach the issue with care, openness and respect, allowing the learners to voice the rationale behind their name choices to protect their right to self-expression, position and definition.

This study contributes to existing scholarship by presenting the stories of a less-examined group of multilingual learners who struggle with the broader language ideologies attached to naming, deepening our knowledge of the two-way relationship between foreign name(s) usage and multilingual identity negotiation. Given the relative nicheness of the topic, the nature of this study remains largely explorative. Much more research is needed to decipher the dynamic name-language-identity nexus. While the qualitative nature of the study enabled in-depth examination, it also demands caution in appropriating research findings. The participants from this study were LOTE learners from an international school, who were expected to attend universities abroad. Investigations into other contexts, for instance, students with no plans for overseas study, may yield very different results. Meanwhile, it might be of interest to explore if and how linguistic distance may impact the learners’ identification process. Though beyond the scope off the present study, parts of the data suggest that the modality of name usage might be a factor that impacts the name-multilingual identity dynamics. Pennames, online alias and names used in real-life occasions may interact with learners’ multilingual identity construction in distinct ways.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The names were in Chinese if not specified.

Appendix

Appendix A:

Background questionnaire

If you would like to participate in the study, please complete this questionnaire and leave your contact details. Thank you very much for your support!

Class number:

Gender:

Age:

Contacting details:

Please list all the foreign languages you studied and specify the duration of learning.

Please fill in the table with all the names you deem important to you, including nicknames and online alias. They can be in any language.

Table

Name	Language of the name	Name giver	Time of usage	Still in use?	Do you know the meaning of the name?	Contexts of usage
Example 1: Xiaohong Li	Chinese	Parents	From birth till present	Yes	Yes	Various formal and informal occasions
Example 2: Federica	Italian	Myself	2014–2018	No	Yes	Italian classes, when talking to Italian people (online and in-person), when talking to people who can’t speak Chinese in Italy

Appendix B:

Interview prompts

For individual names:

1. Any stories you would like to share about this name?

2. Could you tell me about the origin of the name? (Name giver, the naming occasion)

3. When and where do you use this name?

4. How do you feel when you are called this name?

5. How would you feel if you are called by this name outside its normal contexts of usage?

6. Is it still in use? If not, why?

7. What’s the meaning of this name? What message does it convey to you and others?

8. How do you feel about this name? / What’s it like?/ How much do you like this name?

9. Do you always feel this way about this name? If not, what changed?

10. What do you think this name tells about you?

11. How much do you identify with this name? / How much do you think this name represents you? How important is/ was this name to you?

12. Have you ever considered changing it? Why or why not?

Questions about several names：

1. Do different names mean different things to you? / Do they have different meanings to you?

2. Do you have particular preference for names in certain occasions?

3. How do these names represent you? Which is the name you identify with the most/ least? Which name do you like the best?

4. If you go abroad in the future, which name would you prefer to use when communicating with teachers/ classmates/ strangers/ friends … ?

5. Do you think it is necessary/ important/ useful to have a name in a certain language when you start to learn that language?

6. What do you think having names in different languages mean to you? According to you, what’s the function of having names in different languages?

7. What do you think having and using name of different languages say about you?

8. Are there any names you did not put in the table but want to share with me?