I call myself…

The habit may not be universal, but large numbers of Hong Kong Chinese have adopted Western Christian names. Not a particularly noteworthy phenomenon in itself, but the choice of names does throw up some points of interest. The practice also seems to have become widespread among young Indian professionals, if my experiences with Indian call centres are anything to go by.

First, a surprising number of girls and women have adopted names that in the West are now regarded as irredeemably old-fashioned, such as Agnes, Florence, Gladys and Mabel. Second, males often take on the formal version of a name, for example Kenneth, Richard, Thomas or William, but if you were to call someone with one of these names Kenny, Dick, Tommy or Billy, respectively, they would not respond, because Kenny, Dick, Tommy and Billy are seen as different names.

Then there are the outlandish choices, one of which stands out in my memory as the most bizarre of all: in the early 1980s, Yamaha employed an organ tutor who called himself Moondoggy Lo. I used to wonder what kind of music he might play at home. Judging by the name, I don’t think it would be music I would want to listen to.

All this makes me wonder what name I would have chosen if I too had had a free choice. Actually, there is only one candidate in the frame. I’ve had the same name for more than 64 years, and I’m attached to it. I believe that most Westerners would make the same choice, because a name is more than a label. Your name is your identity, which makes all the more puzzling a story I read on the website of England’s Sun newspaper over the weekend.

Apparently, a fan of Liverpool football club has changed his name by deed poll to Fernando Torres, the team’s centre forward. I cannot imagine that this fool feels any sense of identity with the new name, and I would expect his wife to continue to call him Shaun. And one can only assume that he felt no sense of identity with his original name either.

That this is also the case with Chinese who adopt Western names I deduce from an experience I had when I arrived in Hong Kong in 1974 to work at the Outward Bound School here. On one of my first courses, I discovered that there were two trainees in my watch who called themselves Richard. In order to avoid confusion, I suggested to one of them, I proposed to address him as Ricardo for the four-week duration of the course. At the end of the course, he informed me that he preferred Ricardo and that he would not be calling himself Richard in the future.

In my own case, I’ve been called by a few names over the years, but nowadays nobody calls me anything but Dennis. I was Hoddo during my school days (a corruption of my surname) and Razz (short for Rasputin) at university, and I continued to attract tiresome beard-related nicknames (Jesus, Fidel) for a few years thereafter.

However, it wasn’t until I went to work at the Eskdale Outward Bound School in the Lake District in 1971 that I experienced anything new in the way I was to be addressed. I was ‘Den’, which I didn’t like much, but in a cultural milieu where Adrian was ‘Ade’, Alan was ‘Al’, Colin was ‘Col’ and Stuart was ‘Stu’, I had little choice but to grin and bear it. But I was surprised to find names that I’d never thought of shortening being routinely chopped in half.

I had a similar experience working in a warehouse in Bermondsey, south London, in the late 1970s. Again I was ‘Den’, but I expected it this time, given that to a Cockney Derek is always ‘Del’ (cf. ‘Del-Boy’, Derek Trotter, in the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses) Gary is always ‘Gal’, and Terry is always ‘Tel’. In earlier times, this practice of transposing l’s and r’s may have been more widespread (cf. Prince Hal, later to become Henry V, in Shakespeare’s Henry IV), but in modern Cockney usage Harry is always ’Arry. I’m tempted to describe this transposition as ‘Chinese’, except that, contrary to popular belief, the Chinese are far more likely to confuse l’s and n’s. It’s the Japanese who confuse l and r.

Of course, there are some names that will almost inevitably be shortened in use: Christopher will be chopped to ‘Chris’, David will be trimmed to ‘Dave’, Michael will become ‘Mike’, and Peter will be clipped to ‘Pete’. However, I’m careful to observe whether a new acquaintance prefers the original or abbreviated version of their name. This is especially important with female acquaintances: addressing someone as ‘Elizabeth’ when all her friends know her as ‘Liz’ is going to sound insufferably formal.

It should be noted that a perceived character change takes place when someone shortens their name. Had we been introduced to Anthony Blair as the new leader of the British Labour Party in 1994, he might have been scrutinized more closely, but ‘Tony’ sounds matey and reassuring, and millions were taken in by his glib platitudes and shallow showmanship. And his lies.

So, are there any circumstances under which I might consider changing my name? Yes there are, but it would have to be something extreme, such as having a contract put out on me by the mafia or other criminal organization, in which case I wouldn’t be writing this blog, and I certainly wouldn’t be telling anyone where I live.