Satan Liu. Harrypotter Wang. Strawberry Chen. Yup, clearly something got lost in translation. I was surfing around Quora.com (my new favorite Q&A website. It’s awesome!) and stumbled on the thread titled, “What is the best English name Chinese people name themselves but that is not generally found outside China?“ 
Great question. As anyone who’s traveled to China knows, Chinese people sometimes choose the most ridiculous English names for themselves. For example, when I lived in Shanghai, I met a girl named “Marlboro.” Often, Chinese people choose a word, maybe because it sounds nice, but totally miss its meaning or connotation.
Here are my favorite user replies to the question on Quora.com:
- Harrypotter (one word)
- Vampire
- Uranus (a girl named after “the big star in the sky”)
- Creamy (yes, for a girl)
- Pussy (she liked cats)
- God
- Pizza (guy who loved pizza)
- Evian (someone who studied in France)
- Waterborn (wtf?)
- Peter Pan (this one’s really popular, apparently)
- Harvard
- Titanic
- Motorcycle
- Machine Gun
- Sorry (as in, “Hello, I’m Sorry.”)
Ah, I could keep going because they’re all so…good (bad?). Read the full thread here!
Like getting lost in translation? Then read about China’s ban on all English words in newspapers, “Exotic” English tattoos becoming all the rage in China, and the white boy who speaks immaculate Singlish.
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