What's in a name? Quite a lot

If i write that my name is Chan and I am Chiuchow you can tell several things about me. You will know my name and the part of China where I have family roots. But you can also guess that I am from Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong.

If I wrote that I am Chen and of Chaozhou origin, you could tell that I have the same Chinese name and ancestral area, but you could also tell that I am from the mainland, since I write in Pinyin. And if I wrote that I am Tan and Teochew, you could tell it's the same name and place again, but you might guess I am probably from a place such as Singapore or Thailand where the spelling reflects the local pronunciation.

The strange thing about this feature of our culture is that people who read Chinese will miss this information. They will see the name, and that will be that. But if they see Wu, Ng or Goh, they will be able to guess this is someone from the mainland, Hong Kong or Southeast Asia, respectively. It can be quite specific.

Oei is probably from Indonesia, and Vong from Macau (they are both Wong to us). Non-Chinese readers can actually know more than someone looking only at the Chinese.

There is an alternative to writing names as they are pronounced. If you use Chinese on your Hong Kong identity card, a dedicated number represents each character of your name. Even if you are a Tran from Vietnam or a Chin from the Philippines, you are actually 7115, like me.

By Bernard Charnwut Chan. Source: The Standard, Hong Kong