What is the very first and most important thing all foreigners who ever come to China (or attend a Chinese class anywhere else in the world) need? Of course – a Chinese name. It’s for some reason an absolute necessity for many people in China to get a new name for every new language they learn, which can add up to quite a selection.

For myself this issue was quickly and pragmatically dealt with by my first Chinese teacher, who simply gave me the name 史蒂文 (shǐ dì wén) which is a more or less successful try of representing the sound of my name in English ‘Steven’ with Chinese syllables and characters  – a quite common way to give foreigners their Chinese names. Now Shǐ Dì Wén did the trick for the beginning, but with more time spent here in China and with more Chinese learned (and more reactions to the name observed) this name somehow lost its magic – also due to the similarities of the assumed surname part (史 / shǐ) with another less charming character (屎 / shǐ).

After extensive research and discussions my friends finally came up with a solid and good sounding proper Chinese name for me: 韩昊然 (hán hào rán). Here, the first character 韩 is supposed to sound alike with the beginning of my family name – good enough reason to call me ‘Mr. Hán’, an actually quite popular and good Chinese family name. For my given name the characters 昊 and 然 are supposed to reflect some of my character and personality a bit, suggesting that I am a bright and smart guy (which is yet to be seen). Anyway this name has since been praised by my Chinese teachers as a really authentic and nice sounding Chinese name and so I am happy to carry it with me on the rest of my exciting time in China. It was even a fun enough story to write a homework essay about it…