Giving Chinese Students English Names
At some point in your ESL teaching career a student will ask you to give him or her an English name. My advice to you is to take care and time in doing this.
Don’t start giving out names on the spot. Ask the students some information about themselves and then tell them you will give them English names next week. Take some time after class to ask what students would like to receive names. You might have an overwhelming number of students requesting you name-giving services. To prepare for this you may want to make a small questionnaire to give all who are interested.
Ask them things like…
What is your Chinese family name? (Give them a name that sounds good with this)
Do you prefer a long or short name?
What is your favorite season? (Names of months – April or May – usually work well with these questions)
How do you describe your personality?
After you’ve collected individual student information you can go through them and give names. Be sure to look up the meanings of names on the Internet. You will certainly be asked, “What does it mean?”
Students will love if you give them each an individual card with their new English name and some information about its meaning.
If nothing else they’ll respect the name you give them because they will see you are taking your time with the decision. After all, giving a name in Chinese culture is an extremely important thing.