October 12, 2006
As American as Vartan, Luis and Na
By CINDY CHANG
LOS ANGELES
TO the people who suggest it might be easier if he calls himself
Victor, Vartan Zhamkochyan has a simple answer: no way. And though his
last name ismore of a tongue twister than his first name, that, too,
is nonnegotiable.
Mr. Zhamkochyan and his wife, Naira Mnatsakanyan, shunned the
time-honored immigrant tradition of anglicizing their names when they
became United States citizens last month. Both are determined to keep
using their full Armenian names, despite the obvious inconveniences.
`They can’t say my first name or my last name,’ said Ms. Mnatsakanyan
(whose full name is pronounced NIGH-rah meh-naht-sah-KHAN-yahn), 35,
an accounting student from Burbank, outside Los Angeles. `It’s really
hard for them. But I love for them to try and say it, since it’s my
name, it’s my father’s name.’
Hayedeh or Heidi? Estuardo or Steve? Simhe Kohnovalsky or Sam Cohn?
>From the ragtag Polish farmer at Ellis Island to the wealthy
businessman who arrives on a first-class flight from Tehran,
immigrants with names likely to trip up the average American have to
confront questions about one of the most defining pieces of a person’s
identity.
Plenty of immigrants still change their names to something easier for
their new compatriots to pronounce. But unlike their Ellis Island
predecessors, modern immigrants live in a multicultural society where
assimilation no longer means having to sever all ties to where they
are from.
Today’s anglicizations are less likely to be forced by bosses or
teachers and more likely to be the product of careful consideration
about the tradeoff between fitting in and giving up a part of one’s
heritage, immigrants and cultural experts say.
Increasing acceptance of nonmainstream names seems an inevitable next
step, as immigrant pride finds a prominent place on the national stage
– witness the millions of Spanish speakers chanting `SÃ-, se puede’
(`Yes, we can’) in the streets last spring – and new Americans
maintain a firm grip on their native languages, foods and customs.
Only 16 percent of the nearly 700,000 people who became naturalized
citizens in the last year requested a name change, according to
statistics from the United States Citizenship and Immigration
Services. The rest decided to stick with given names like Quirino,
Takero, Wenyi and Erendira.
`Obviously, early in the 20th century, with the whole Americanization
movement, people were encouraging the immigrant community to be more
American,’ said Marian Smith, the _immigration_
( ence/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refuge es/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-classifier)
services historian. `If you fast forward 50 years, you find an America
where people say that’s something you really have to think about, how
much of your identity is your name. To even suggest to someone that
they change their name is to suggest there’s something wrong with
their name as it is.’ While many choose American first names for
their offspring, that is also changing. Angel was the most popular
name for Hispanic boys born in New York City in 2005, according to its
Health and Mental Hygiene Department, with José and Luis also among
the top 20. There were 162 Carloses, 95 Giovannis, 41 Guadalupes, 25
Anjalis and 17 Yukis born to New Yorkers last year.
In a country where falafel and pad thai are now nearly as commonplace
as Chinese takeout, some children of immigrants are even reclaiming
their ethnic names, suddenly announcing that they will no longer use
the American first names their parents gave them but will henceforth
be known as Aiko or Ying-hui.
`We feel much more accepted into American society now,’ said Hongxia
Liu, who came to the United States from Beijing in 1986 and has kept
her Chinese name, which means rainbow. `Why not keep our own identity,
our cultural heritage, including the name, especially the name coming
from your parents?’ Ms. Liu, the director of an international legal
assistance center in Washington, says that friends puzzle over how to
pronounce her name, especially the ` x.’ She tells them to think of it
like the `sh’ sound.
She and her husband, Jianye Wang, named their daughter and son Lumay
and Jayon – derivatives of the Chinese names Lumei and Jiyang. The
Wangchildren, now teenagers, love their names.
`We wanted to keep the Chinese identity but in the meantime make them
easy to pronounce and remember,’ Ms. Liu said.
Tina Cordova, who owns a construction company in Albuquerque, grew up
in an era when many Hispanic parents avoided speaking Spanish at home
in the hope that their children would grow up to be wholly
American. Her father, Anastasio Antonio Cordova, always went by Tony,
and he named his four children Tina, Tammy, Matthew and William.
Now, all of Ms. Cordova’s immigrant employees go by names like
Santiago and Alejandro. Her grandchildren, Marcus Philimon and
Demetrius Anthony, have names that, if not traditionally Mexican, are
a departure from the `Leave It to Beaver’ names of her
generation.
`Everyone was trying back then to fit in, hence me and my brothers and
sister have very American names,’ said Ms. Cordova, 47. `Now there’s a
tendency toward not feeling so uncomfortable naming your children
something that sounds ethnic.’ Based on data compiled from birth
certificates, Stanley Lieberson, a _Harvard_
( /timestopics/organizations/h/harvard_university/in dex.html?inline=3Dnyt-org)
sociology professor, concluded that until the 1980’s, immigrants
quickly conformed to prevailing normsin naming their children. But he
also noticed that African-American names diverged increasingly from
the mainstream in a pattern that correlated with growingsocial status
and racial pride. A similar trend may be developing among immigrants
today.
`Declaring I am whatever it is I am is cool now, where it might
nothave been earlier, partly because of a greater tolerance to
nonassimilation,’ Professor Lieberson said. `There is a shift
over time toward ethnic assertiveness.’ Frank and Na Hong, like many
other Asian immigrants, gave their two children American first names
and Korean middle names. Their son, Timothy Seung-Ho Hong, often
fended off ethnic slurs while growing up in Seattle and New Orleans.
But in college, Mr. Hong took ethnic studies classes and joined
Asian-American advocacy groups. When he moved back to New Orleans six
yearsago, Mr. Hong started going by Seung-Ho, later shortening it to
Seung after people had trouble pronouncing the full name.
The transition has mostly gone smoothly, though his father still slips
up and addresses him as Timmy. People routinely butcher the name,
calling him Shawn or Sang – it is pronounced `Sung’ – and are more
likely to assume that he is a foreigner. But for Mr. Hong the
inconvenience is worth it.
`I wanted to more strongly connect with my history, my culture and
having my name be kind of like a reminder of who I am,’ said Mr. Hong,
30, who is the legislative director for a New Orleans city
councilwoman.
Some Asian-Americans who started out using their ethnic first names
switched to more traditional American names, only to reclaim their
original names as adults. After moving to Indiana from Southern
California, Fumiko China’s parents decided she would have a tough
enough time being half Japanese in the Midwest without having a
foreign-sounding name. From then on, she was known by her middle name,
Catherine.
Ms. Chino is now using her Japanese name again, and three of her four
siblings have also reverted.
`I love the fact that it’s an old Japanese name,’ said Ms. Chino, 29,
who until recently worked in the art department of an anime film
company in Houston. `People who are Fumikos are in their 70’s. It’s
unique, and I like that.
It also helps clarify who I am. I hate getting the question,
`What are you?’ ‘
In Hollywood, too, where name changes are as common as nose jobs, the
tide may be turning, as Asian actresses like Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li
star in big-budget productions.
The actress Ming-Na tried going by Maggie and Doris as a teenager, an
attempt to fit in better at a school in the Pittsburgh area, where she
was the only Asian student. But she said none of those names felt
right, and she stuck with her given name as she tried to forge a
career in Hollywood, even rejecting advice from Wayne Wang, the
director of `The Joy Luck Club,’ that she anglicize it.
She went on to become one of Hollywood’s best-known Asian-American
actresses.
At her suggestion, the Chinese-American doctor she played on `ER’
underwent a name change from Deb to Jing-Mei.
`What’s great is that as you grow up, you have a stronger idea of who
you are and pride about your heritage,’ she said. `It becomes more of,
`No, no, you guys have got to come around to learn how to
pronounce our names.’ NYTimes.com