English Names Revisited: in a Deglobalizing World, They are the Hope of Reviving Globalization

I used to be miffed whenever I heard those who do not come from an English-speaking background get English names. When I worked in an internship years ago in China, I was disgusted that my Chinese colleagues would not call me by my name simply because I did not have an English one. They would address each other by their English names before returning to their Chinese conversations. I found the act highly superficial: having English names did not automatically make them proficient in English, just as their choice of not addressing my Chinese name did not make me less international than they are.

With that residual anger, I called that obsession with English names a sign of an inferiority complex. In that unfulfilled desire to be fluent in English, to be globally minded, too many people, in China and elsewhere, with zero exposure to anywhere outside their home country, started using English names as a shorthand, trying in vain to prove that they are something else. I argued that for that inferiority complex to truly go away, the first step has to be a global society that respects names of all origins equally, rather than seeing English ones as somehow superior. 

Unfortunately, the reality is much harsher. As English became the dominant lingua franca in globalized work environments with people from all cultures, all matters English language inadvertently became a quick way to connect and fit in. With everyone coming from different backgrounds, there is increasingly a sense that those with easier-to-pronounce names, by people from many origins, had the upper hand in navigating diversity. As the English language became more and more dominant, English names have become the easier-to-pronounce names. 

That patronizing attitude toward English names, and the condescending attitude toward those who do not abide by it, has somehow sparked a nativist backlash that is equally disrespectful of cultural diversity for something as simple as a name. As the Chinese made it matter-of-fact for the Chinese moving into a supposedly global context, they also pushed the contrasting corollary: that non-Chinese coming into the Chinese context need to get Chinese names too. The black-and-white perspective on names quickly degenerated into a zero-sum approach to cultural exchange.

Yet, years after I rail against this way of thinking, it is time for a rethink. The world's relationship with "globalization" has changed beyond recognition: whereas whether or not going global used to just be a matter of affinity toward the English language and foreign cultures (hence the desire for a nice English name), the past years have thrown up much higher obstacles. Those who want to go abroad now have to face doubts back at home, of undermining national security for a superficial, selfish international experience. A nice English name is no longer just a sign of being global, but potentially traitorous.

In such a world, getting that nice English name is no longer just some self-deprecating but ultimately harmless fawning toward the supposedly greener pastures on the other side. Instead, it has become a much more courageous move, with the proud "Alex" and "Jennifers" in China, particularly, having to fight off an army of trolls seeking to undermine their Chineseness. Their being purely domestic in upbringing no longer mattered, their positive attitude toward the world offshore, signaled by their willingness to publicly carry an English name, made their loyalty to the motherland highly suspect.

In this world, I am willing to support those who, in some corner offices in Shanghai, remain proud of calling their coworkers using English names. They are, with their small actions, signals that, despite concerted Western efforts to not only "de-risk" any sensitive commercial relationships by also people-to-people ones, that yearning for an international lifestyle remains. It is a sign that while the road to the US has now become limited to illegal crossings from Mexico and once inside, political paranoia of "CCP influence" becomes manifested in racism, the desire to stay in touch with English remains strong.

Indeed, to remain interested in what's out there, as the world deglobalizes, takes enormous courage that not everyone can muster. For so many who casually assign themselves English names, many may have stopped in China and elsewhere. But for deglobalization to have any chance of being reversed, the grassroots level needs to remain internationally engaged. Those who do not care about international news, as is so common in Japan, cannot be depended on to revive globalization. But at least those who continue to call themselves by their English names have yet to give up on that globalized world.