Texas GOP Legislator Calls for Asian Americans to Adopt Simpler Names
How’s that minority outreach going I wonder?
A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”
The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes. [...] “Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.
As it happens, it seems to me that people of Chinese ancestry tend to have very “easy” names as things stand—lots of monosyllables and so forth. The big culprits in terms of “difficult” names, I would say, are Eastern Europeans, South Asians, upper-class WASPs, and of course those of us with Galician names like “Yglesias” that combined foreign origin with unorthodox spelling.
91 Responses to “Texas GOP Legislator Calls for Asian Americans to Adopt Simpler Names”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
April 9th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Also, John Boehner will now formally be known as “Boner”.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Must be that Texas public education isn’t all that’s cracked up to be. Confused by the difference between monosyllabic names like “Wong” or “Chu?”
April 9th, 2009 at 10:23 am
This wingnut probably went to some “Christian academy” or was homeschooled, I reckon.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I have a rather different complaint. I would like the guys in the Indian call centers to learn that my first name does not have two syllables.
In point of fact my last name is mispronounced by more than half the people who try to pronounce it off a written sheet, but (following up on El Cid) that’s a lot better than my wife faired with her German maiden name (which she hasn’t used since we were married) which no one ever pronounced in either of the two correct ways of pronouncing it.
German names (including Yiddish and other low German dialects, such as Mr. Boehner’s ancestors clearly spoke) have already paid their price — my great-grandfather lost three consonants out of his last name on immigration, and it was only one syllable to start with.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Thai names are among the “roughest.”
Galicia, hey, I was in Vigo a while back. Beautiful place!
April 9th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.
What is so funny is that Brown’s stupid suggestion didn’t even address the issue under discussion – the fact that people may have two different names on documents used for identification and thus have problems voting.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I wonder if I could convince every male in Texas to change his name to Won Hung Lo. That would really bugger the voter rolls.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Interesting language, too (Galician).
April 9th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Only if John Cornyn changes his name first. What kind of pronunciation is Conrnyn!?!?
April 9th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Asians typically take on American names anyway. Yin becomes Joyce and Jin Hi becomes Jenny. The legislator just needs to shut up and let people Americanize themselves. It’s already happening.,
April 9th, 2009 at 10:34 am
“Thai names are among the “roughest.””
Yeah, I still can’t figure out how to say the King’s name (it’s not how it’s spelled). I stick to “His Majesty.” Fortunately, women usually take on one-syllable nicknames like “Nid.” And taxi drivers always seem to go by “Charlie.”
April 9th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Remember, it was Texas governor Ma Barker who declared that “if the English language was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for the schoolchildren of Texas.”
Her legacy lives on. Though I must say that I suspect Gov. Barker was a Democrat.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:37 am
@6 – well this does address the problem, by making it worse. Let’s add another name!
Funny. I’m Asian, my girlfriend is Scottish. People have way more trouble with her name than with mine.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Uhh, yeah, I’ll tell Brian Chan and Edna Wu to get simpler names.
Seriously though, this is actually a ploblem in the sense that it makes voter (and and other types of) fraud a whole lot easier. I worked at a credit card company where some guy was shocked when I called him on an attempt to steal the ID of a woman named “Fatima.” Not that forcing immigrants to change their names is the answer.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Anderson, it’s not just Ma Barker. Tom DeLay has said that too. Seems to be a common sentiment in Texas.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:50 am
As it happens, it seems to me that people of Chinese ancestry tend to have very “easy” names as things stand—lots of monosyllables and so forth. The big culprits in terms of “difficult” names, I would say, are Eastern Europeans, South Asians, upper-class WASPs, and of course those of us with Galician names like “Yglesias” that combined foreign origin with unorthodox spelling.
Absolutely. Where is the call for consonant reform for Polish American names?
April 9th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Quick, every Asian American change your name to John Smith! It’ll make it so much easier for us to keep track of you…
April 9th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Cleary,she is on the wong track.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I work in a call center for a company that has many, many, many South Asian customers of both Muslim and Hindu background, and frankly, if you take five fucking seconds, it’s easy to pronounce their names. There’s a standardized transliteration into Roman characters, so you just sound it out phonetically, and there’s a 99% chance you’re going to get it right (the 1% comes from the names with an Arabic background and the presence of a couple sounds we don’t have letters for). This is opposed to say, French, Slavic, or Celtic names (Siobhan is pronounced “shuh-vahn”) that have just crazy, unpredictable ways of being pronounced, or even worse, families that were given Ellis Island spellings, but kept the old pronunciation. I guarantee that if I get a call from someone who hails from the Deccan, I’ve got a better chance at getting their name right than I do if I get a call from someone whose family came from Cornwall.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Where is the call for consonant reform for Polish American names?
I went to school with someone whose last name was pronounced “Jen-jay-check.” It looked something like this: Jrnzjadzk.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Is there a Korean (or possibly Chinese) name that translates to Grace? I grew up and went to college in Southern California, so I’ve grown up with a lot of second generation Asians, some who adopted “American” names, and some who didn’t. This is going to sound strange (though I hope not racist), but it seems if I know 10 people named Grace, nine of them are Asian. I’ve always wondered if it’s a translation issue, or is that name just particularly appeals to first generation Asian parents?
April 9th, 2009 at 10:57 am
The fact that Matt ignores the Welsh and their need for more constants than the alphabet allows shows his bias…
April 9th, 2009 at 10:57 am
I worked at a credit card company where some guy was shocked when I called him on an attempt to steal the ID of a woman named “Fatima.”
And that would have been different if the guy was trying to steal the ID of “Jennifer” (or “John” for that matter) how?
April 9th, 2009 at 11:00 am
As long as we’re talking about anti-Asian racism, it’s worth remembering the ongoing problem of the whitewashing of the cast of the live action “Avatar” movie. Good summary in the SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/29/DDMU15ICE4.DTL&feed=rss.asianpop
April 9th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Also offensive is her reference to “your citizens.” If this is a discussion about voters, then presumably they are US citizens.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:05 am
good catch MF.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:09 am
My last name is spelled Levesque, pronounced exactly like a French person would pronounce the modern French word l’évêque: leh-VECK, allowing for differences in accent. In high school I had a teacher whose ancestors were from the Basque region or something. His name was Gasque, and he pronounced it gas-q. That is, the word for something neither solid nor liquid, followed by the letter before r. Fucking Ellis Island.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Gitai is right about South Asian names. They can be long, but if you take your time, they are very easy to pronounce. After a week in India, you get used to it. What makes Thai names so hard is they have sounds that westerners often can’t say. Tibetan names can be hard, too. My tongue still can’t form ‘Ngdop,’ which sucks because I have friend with that name. Fortunately, his other name is easy, so I stick to that one. Which is fine because they don’t have family names and given names. They just have two names.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:10 am
I’m Asian, my girlfriend is Scottish. People have way more trouble with her name than with mine.
I feel her pain. Try living in Miami with a name like Dwight Monteith. At the DMV and doctor’s offices I learned to respond to furrowed brows followed by “mont?”.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I worked at a credit card company where some guy was shocked when I called him on an attempt to steal the ID of a woman named “Fatima.”
And that would have been different if the guy was trying to steal the ID of “Jennifer” (or “John” for that matter) how?
Well, I think the point is that the guy wouldn’t have been stupid enough to try to use an ID that said “Jennifer”, but he thought that no one would know that “Fatima” is a woman’s name.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:13 am
And that would have been different if the guy was trying to steal the ID of “Jennifer” (or “John” for that matter) how?
If a guy tries to use the name “Jennifer,” then any random idiot can tell that it’s almost definitely not his real name. If a guy tries to use the name “Fatima,” though, you need at least a little familiarity with the Arabic language or culture to notice the problem.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Ajay, Cyrus:
Thanks. I’ve worked and gone to school with Fatimas so it seems an obviously female name to me, but you have a point. Still it seems a marginal problem because that is hardly the best way to fight credit card fraud.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:20 am
@Seitz,
I think you may have met a lot of Chinese-Americans named “Grace” because a lot of Chinese people tend to give their children names that actually mean something. So, if a Chinese parent wants her daughter to be graceful, she names her Grace.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I guess reading the entire piece is just too strenuous on the liberal attack-dog, “gotcha” mentality. Apparently, Ms. Brown made the comments in the context of debating voter ID during elections. This is what Ms. Brown was referring to. She wasn’t making a general, off-the-cuff, “macaca” statement, as much as the left would love that. But I guess contemplating the true context of the remarks and putting it in its proper prospective would just ruin the whole “only Democrats care about the common man” narrative.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:22 am
No I don’t remember someone who was never Govenor of Texas (Ma Barker was a notorious criminal, not a gov.) saying something that is a complete urban legend. http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=000448;p=1
I think you meant to say “Ma” Ferguson, but then again its still an urban legend when it is attributed to her, although she was governor.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:23 am
By the way, why did all these stupid people around the world get difficult non-English names in the first place?
April 9th, 2009 at 11:24 am
RE: Fatima
It seems to me that unisex names like Pat or Sam would be even bigger problems wouldn’t it? But in any case, I think the vast majority of credit card fraud occurs with people using cards with names of the same gender.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:25 am
By the way, why did all these stupid people around the world get difficult non-English names in the first place?
It was after the tower of babel when God cursed all the OTHER nations, giving them strange languages, f’ern accents, and funny names.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:32 am
eh, don’t want to sound rude, but as a Galician, I’m a bit puzzled. “Yglesias” is a Galician surname?
There’s no letter Y in Galician. Is as alien as an umlaut would be in Spanish.
Glad to know one of my fave bloggers has roots in my country, though.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I guess reading the entire piece is just too strenuous on the liberal attack-dog, “gotcha” mentality. Apparently, Ms. Brown made the comments in the context of debating voter ID during elections. This is what Ms. Brown was referring to. She wasn’t making a general, off-the-cuff, “macaca” statement, as much as the left would love that. But I guess contemplating the true context of the remarks and putting it in its proper prospective would just ruin the whole “only Democrats care about the common man” narrative.
Well, since you don’t give your child a name *just* for purposes of voting, suggesting that they have “easier to pronounce” names for voting means that they should have these names in general. Also, she talked about making the names easier for Americans to pronounce. The people she is talking about are Americans and as American as anyone else. As others have pointed out, she wouldn’t have made this comment about difficult-to-”deal-with” names such as the Irish Siobhan, the Welsh Llinos (the double “L” has a pronunciation far from anything we have in English), etc…
April 9th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Marcos:
Matt explains his name a little bit here:
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/06/the_auto_assignment_desk.php
April 9th, 2009 at 11:43 am
To add to Anthony’s point:
Just because the debate was originally about voting doesn’t mean that she didn’t confuse the issue. She did. Instead of changing their names, people with Asian names could just make sure to put their legal names on legal documents used for voting. Or they can change their names if they like, but it really isn’t any of her business, and acting like they are not Americans (as others have said, they have to be citizens to vote) is disgraceful.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:45 am
I wonder if this issue, such as it is, comes from the handful of weird transliterations that don’t make any sense. I have two colleagues — one Chinese, one Korean — whose names contain an “ong” sound that’s spelled “ang” in its transliteration. When non-Asians meet them who’ve only encountered their names in print (at conferences, or what have you), their names are always mispronounced. One of these guys is pretty shy and it took a lot of cajoling from the rest of us in the department to get him to correct people. Now, obviously, transliteration choices aren’t up to individual Wangs that may live outside of east Asia, but it seems like whoever is making these choices might want to test their usability.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I think you meant to say “Ma” Ferguson
Shit, yes, not Ma Barker. These Texans need to have simpler names that are easier to remember.
Language Log tracked the meme. I go with the theory that she did say it, but self-consciously — the woman was not an idiot.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:51 am
David:
Regional variant makes more sense. IIRC there are a few Yglesias in Ourense.
Not a Galician surname though, which was what I found weird.
Probably some cheeky Castillian ancestor angry with the main Iglesias family
April 9th, 2009 at 11:52 am
And what about Brett Favre? Given the way his family name is pronounced, shouldn’t his first name be spelt “Bertt” ?
April 9th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Wait, what state is this woman from?
Vermont? Washington? Maryland? California? Massachusetts?
Iowa? Illinois? New York? New Mexico?
I know, North Carolina. Missouri? Oregon? Wisconsin? No?
Everyone who read this headline and thought, “That can’t be right. Matt must have made a typo. This isn’t the sort of thing a politician from Texas would say,” please raise your hands.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:55 am
The only orthographically vexing Asian name that comes to mind is Nguyen. Seriously, “Win”? And that’s the fault of the French.
And Marcos #40: Umlauts do appear in Spanish, unless you’re particularly shameless, I suppose. Granted, they serve a different purpose than their German counterparts, but they’re the same typographical mark.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Um, umlauts are very common in Spanish. The word verguenza, meaning shame, has an umlaut over the u. I don’t know what that’s all about.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Matt:
The Galician alphabet doesn’t have the letter Y, same as it doesn’t have the letter J. That doesn’t mean I’m going to translate Michael Jordan’s name and writer Yordan or Llordan when I’m writing in Galician. Someone who does not know the original spelling probably would, though.
Same with umlauts or the accent in my surname. You can use it in foreign words, but it’s not a native mark.
Spanish have a similar mark called diaeresis, but the use is completely different and again, it doesn’t exist in Galician.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Lev:
More specifically: The dieresis diacritic mark is unrelated to the often identical-looking umlaut in German, and the decorative “heavy metal umlaut” of bands such as Blue Öyster Cult.
And I’d also debate your definition of “common”. Diaeresis are exceptions (and very rare) to the common rule.
You do know you are arguing about Spanish with a Spaniard, right.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Marcos: Here is a business located in Ourense, Galicia, named Yglesias Gestores Asociados. Here is their listing in the Spanish yellow pages. They’re located quite close to the Autovia de las Rias Baixas. Please stop this.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
The problem with Chinese (and Korean) surnames is not that they are difficult to pronounce. They are usually pretty easy to get roughly correct (with exceptions for poor transliterations like Wang). The real problem is that there are so few of them, and they are all monosyllabic. About 40% of Chinese people share 10 surnames. About 70% share 40 surnames. Everybody has the same damn names.
It’s funny for Westerners when they look at the lineups for Korean or Chinese baseball teams, with all of the repeat names.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Can we stop passing along the myth that Ellis Island changed people’s last names? People’s last names changed from the old country’s spelling to a newer, “American” one were not due to typos, misunderstandings, or bureaucratic mishaps at Ellis Island. They had tons of interpreters there. People either wanted their names changed to sound more American (or less Jewish or German or whatever) after they got here (or maybe before) or were fed up with idiot locals in Ohio or Nebraska or wherever misspelling and mispronouncing their names, so they changed them. Spellings also weren’t as set in stone in the 19th century as they are today, and many people’s names often changed some due to illiteracy, whims, or whatever. My family’s name dropped an “n” from their German -mann suffix to “fit in better.” Stop blaming Ellis Island.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
JT: Thanks for the link to Snopes, as I’ve always suspected that the “English was good enough for Jesus” line was too good to be true. When someone on this thread attributed it to Tom DeLay as well—a conservative who we hate and want to make fun of, and who would never say something like that—I knew we were in urban legend territory.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Mike Krzyzewski.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
El Cid:
Stop what?
And why are you giving me a link to a Spanish Yellow pages when I have the printed version at arm’s lenght?
April 9th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
while i agree this seems ridiculous, i feel that there is a genuine problem with chinese names.
that is, there are not enough of them (surnames).
as a scientist who spends a great deal of time using search sites such as pubmed, it can be difficult to find the desired reference when it is authored by a wang, li, or wu. there is typically no middle initial to facilitate the distinction.
i doubt this is what she meant by “easier” – but she may have a point, albeit by accident.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I totally agree with the Texas legislator. For example, I think Jackie Chan should be forced to change his name to just JACK C.
And if Bruce Lee were still alive, I would demand that those cumbersome two syllables be reduced to one.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Matt B. @49:
Just because you can’t pronounce a name correctly doesn’t mean it’s not spelled sensibly.
Nguyen is not pronounced by Vietnamese as “win”–it’s just that “win” is the closest way to pronounce it in English that conforms to English rules of well-formed words. The “ng” is not silent, it’s exactly like “ng” in English, except in English, words don’t begin with “ng”, so people just strip it off. “U” can be like a “w” as it is in, for example, “vergüenza”, and the “y” is a vowel like it is in English “gyp”. The “y” and the “e” come in quick succession and sound like a short vowel to English speakers, and it gets collapsed into a “i” as in “bit”.
Something arguably closer to the native pronunciation that is natural for English-speakers to say would be “weein’”, as in “I couldn’t come to the door when you knocked cuz I was weein’–sorry to make you wait.”
I’m sure the Spanish think it crazy that we would spell the name that should obviously be spelled “Quiz” as “Keith”, which to Spanish eyes should be pronounced the way we pronounce the name “Kate”.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
And it’s not just Westeners that have a problem with too few Chinese surnames. Even the Chinese realize it’s a problem:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2007-06/12/content_891917.htm
April 9th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Marcos: Stop what? Stop being annoying about the “Y” in Yglesias’ name when people do in fact use it, in Galicia. If you have the printed Paginas Amarillas, then use it to look up the link I just sent you. Jeesh. Yglesias never claimed that his family was the origin of the Gallego dialect or that he was the ideal reprsentative of Gallegan nationalism. Now go drink a nice glass of albariño and munch on some pimientos de padrón or pulpo and blah blah blah blah blah.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I’m with her so long as she votes for my bill stopping people from talking in that ridiculous Texas accent.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
blah @62,
The Chinese have a problem with too few names because there are large numbers of people who have the same name and it makes identification objectively difficult.
There are not enough Chinese in the U.S. for this to be a problem here. For every Wang Tao in the U.S., there are ten or more John Smiths. Rep. Brown has a problem with Chinese names because she can’t deal with the existence of cultural and linguistic variation, and wants the most obvious signs of that variation to just go away so she doesn’t have to think about it as much.
To go off on a tangent, that seems to be how a lot of people feel about non-heterosexual people, too. Their preferred response would be, “Gays exist? [sticks thumbs in ears] La la la la la la, I can’t heeeeeeeear you!!”, but evidently civilization has progressed to the point where they have to come up with sophisticated-sounding arguments as to why, even if gay people do exist, we should act as if they didn’t.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Hey,
You forgot about us Arabs. We give ground to nobody (ok, maybe to the Celts) on difficult names. I grew up waiting for the hesitation in the middle of the alphabet, then saying ‘you can just call me Kal.’
It’s a real environmental disaster, too. My family used to get the same junk mail with multiple variations in the spelling. As if we didn’t get enough catalogs.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
What’s Wong with Chu, dumb lady from Texas:)
April 9th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I have a friend who goes by the Hebrew version of his name, but has the anglicized version (actually two different versions) on his birth cert, passport etc. It’s the kind of situation that the BCIS database wasn’t really built to cope with.
And Mike (#55) is right: Ellis Island didn’t change names. It was the process of people establishing themselves in American society that eroded spellings and pronunciations.
So, if you adopt an anglicized name for daily business, and the voter ID muppet decides that something’s up because Yong-Sung is called Jonathan on his utility bill, that’s the problem of the voter ID muppet.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Galicians, Gaels, Gauls, Gallic, all the same stuff. Been to the Casa des crechas lately?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cYWNDPGZho&feature=player_embedded
April 9th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
James L. @ 65:
I realize all of that. I was making a different point from the Texas idiot.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Interesting. If I ever have a daughter, I’ve thought about giving her a name (first or middle, depending on my future wife’s preferences) translatable as ‘Eyes like Flowers’. I love the name, and it’s a classic Tamil one. However, I’ve been advised against this, since the name has a consonant in the middle of it that doesn’t exist in English and is damn near impossible for Americans to pronounce. (It is usually transliterated ‘L’ or ‘ZH’, and sounds like a retroflex ‘R’). What does the Yglesian commentariat advice me to do?
April 9th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
El Cid:
1 – We are having a conversation here. In good spirits and I have no aspirations of trolling or anything similar. So, that big-arse chip on your shoulder? Not mine, that’s all yours. If you don’t like the conversation, don’t read it.
2 – if you do intend to join the conversation, then at least care to read what has been said. Instead of getting vinegary on a big load of nothing, you’d realized I simply pointed that Yglesias is not a Galician surname and that I found funny Matt claimed as much. That’s not a dig at Matt. I’m actually honoured he’s a fellow Galician. I’m just pointing a fact.
That doesn’t mean his surname or his family doesn’t originate from Galicia. Which is a completely different thing as BEING Galician.
My second surname it’s very, very old and traditional for Galicians. And all my family from that side of the tree has been living in the Country for Centuries. And yet it is not truly Galician.
3 – If you ever find yourself again in Galicia, I’d recommend never, EVER to use the word “dialect” to define Galician. Those are fighting words. It is not a dialect, it is a language. Older than Castellano. In fact, you could argue Portuguese is a dialect of Galician (which is not, but still), and I think the Brazillians or Portuguese will take offense that you’d claim they speak bastardized Spanish
4 – What the hell Galician nationalism has to do with with this conversation? You do not think I’m talking anything other than etnology here, right?
April 9th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Andrew Fly:
You’ve just made me cry a little.
I need to get my arse back to Santiago.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Sometimes longer names are easier to deal with, and tell you more about the person as well.
A good example is the name I’ve adopted for the state rep from Terrell, Betty Dumberthanlibrarypaste. It probably fits on her mailbox…
April 9th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
To start, maybe they should change the place name “Terrell” to “Turl,” which is how they probably pronounce it.
With 2 syllables there’s too much room for error in emphasis and vowel sounds.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
One of things that surprised me about Rep. Brown’s comment is how demographically dumb it was for her to make it. 3.4% of Texas’ population is Asian, with most of that concentrated in North Texas and around Houston. A good percentage of Asians vote Republican. Given the increase in the Hispanic population and its trending Democratic, I would suspect Republicans want to keep every voter they already have.
Losing Asian voters could result in Texas turning Democratic, or being Democratic by larger margins in 2012.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
It’s so 2008 to bash Hispanics. Texas Republicans are now telling Asian-Americans, “Tag, you’re it!”
April 9th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Can’t let pass this opportunity to mention Bobby Jindal’s favorite sheriff, the late Harry Lee, who despite his conservative sourthern background, was not one of the
Virginia Lees, but instead was the son of Chinese immigrants. I guess he ought to have changed his name to something more American.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I could be ‘way off base here, but it seems it’s the state houses with the temp legislators that pick up rubes like Ms. Brown. It takes me back to when a bozo in AZ wanted to introduce legislation to rescind the Gadsden Purchase.
Being as the said territory is the Democratic majority part of a GOP state, and I lived there, I thought it was a great idea. I couldn’t wait to get going on adding the 51st star.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I suspect that the person who said the Ellis Island story is a myth is basically correct, but the public schools did change names. I have a thrice (or whatever) greatest aunt Lucy who was born Agathe (pronounced basically a – GOTH -a) who was taken to school by her older brother, who knew a little English, at the age of five. When the teacher asked what her name was he tried Agathe three times and after getting three “Whats?” finally said “Just call her Lucy.” My late uncle and I finally figured out how you got from Agathe to Lucy — in the list of martyrs in the Roman Canon in the Mass Lucy follows Agatha, so it was the natural association.
Since we’re being multicultural, my daughter told when she was in school that the nickname Nelly had come back into fashion; it was short for Nalini.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
The hardest part of Chinese names for me is the slight differentiation between some names – Jiang, Zhang, Zhiang, Xiang, Ziang – are all pronounced differently.
While we’re on the topic, why are Russian names so easy and Polish names so hard to pronounce?
April 9th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Lots of syllables and some weird ones at that. Think about “Zbgniew Brezinzski”, or something like that.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
That’s nothin’. I’ve heard people call that city near the end of the Mississippi “Nawlns”. That saves 3 syllables.
April 9th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
What does a Polish bride get on her wedding night that is long and hard?
A new last name!
April 9th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I remember at a company I worked for, I ran across the name “Man Hang”. I thought it was funny, and was informed that immigrant Chinese frequently pick simpler names when they arrive in the States. I pointed out that they might want to consider the English meaning of some of them before they do so.
Then there’s Moon Bloodgood. Can’t beat that.
April 10th, 2009 at 12:28 am
I live in Taiwan. Like all foreigners living in Taiwan I must adopt a Chinese name for use on all local information (bank accounts, drivers license, etc.) This woman may be an idiot but the concept of adapting foreign names to the local language is hardly unheard of.
April 10th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Uh, that’s because here in Taiwan they use Chinese characters to write your name. If you insisted on using characters to transliterate your Western name you probably could, though the odds are that it would be very long.
The problem they were talking about at the hearing is the habit of some Asian immigrants to use their informally adopted English names i.e. William Lee for Lee Wei-lian, on some of their ID while not having it changed to their legal name, and then facing problems at the voting booth.
Two incidentals:
The Chinese term for “the Common Man”, the “Average Joe”, is Old Hundred Names (Lao Bai Xing), referring to the common surnames.
Most Asian people who name their daughters Grace are Christians.
The most popular English names for girls, in Taiwan at least, are Jenny, Lisa and Tina.
April 10th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Can we add an amendment to limit Texans to only one first name?
-BillyBob
April 10th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Legislator Brown has got it all wrong. The adoption of “English names” by Asians for the benefits of the likes of Ms. Brown, which do not correspond to their original Asian names on legal documents, is what the root of the problem here, not the other way around
April 16th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Hi, nice site! Keep up the good work!.
I am from Emirates and bad know English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Jpg bytes reverse side of the above australian national airways pty.”
:p Thanks in advance. Paloma.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
[...] Yglesias responds:As it happens, it seems to me that people of Chinese ancestry tend to have very “easy” names as [...]
April 18th, 2009 at 8:12 am
W8dV6x kriuikwqamfc, [url=http://wfvrybkduhom.com/]wfvrybkduhom[/url], [link=http://jgmlbdhqqtei.com/]jgmlbdhqqtei[/link], http://btxbwpijkinz.com/