Hu R. Yu?

I thought this was strange:

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.

This seems like something that people can control themselves. Why do they put themselves in the position of having different names on different official documents, if it's known to cause confusion with things like voting?

There's something to that, yes. If 李元春 has Li Yuan Chun in her passport, but goes by Julia Li in daily life, that is possibly confusing, especially if 李元春 can't remember if she registered as a voter as Li Yuan Chun or Yuan Chun Li or Julia Li.

But saying “Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” just seems an odd solution to this problem.

Absolutely. It seemed to speak for itself so I didn't bother to comment. It's just that I was expecting a different article before I read the link. The argument made by Ko that I quoted above really seems strange. I have a nickname that resembles my real name and I'd still never put it on an official document--and I hate to be called it. You can call youself Mike in your daily life if you want to, regardless of whether your legal name is Michael or Masaharu.

I wouldn't say it was a common problem here in NZ but it's not completely unknown - the issue is actually more relevant for older immigrants who arrived here around the 60s and 70s and appears when they need to get documentation such as passports or applying for loans for property.

The main problem - put simply - is they recorded their names in a particular format/structure when they arrived because that was the 'normal' way of doing it here (ie 'told' to record it that way). When later on down the track, particularly when the children grew up, the have realised that the names aren't actually the same as their original refugee papers or even the items they may have set accounts (say bank, electricity or gas) up with when they arrived.

As for spelling names differently - silly idea. Although I do agree that making sure people give the same names to people is a good idea. I looked at a Resume recently in which the persons name on the covering letter differed from his CV, which differed again from his references. It was very confusing.

Ah, sorry, I took your #1 to mean something else -- that it is legitimate for the government to ask residents to use one name consistently on official documentation. (Which makes sense.)

But thinking about it a bit longer, you're right, it's weird that this is a problem. The same problem would exist for people going by Mike or Tim or Ted or whatever in daily life.

(Off-topic, but I met a guy yesterday who introduced himself as Kenny, which later turned out to be short for Innokenti. That's an unexpected one.)

Cool name! What is his background?

I don't know why people need weird names anyway. If English names were good enough for Jesus Christ, they're good enough for me.

#6 -- Russian-Jewish family in Ukraine in the 80s who thought they would be stuck in Ukraine a while longer, so to be safe they gave their son a very Christian (Russian Orthodox, I guess) first name. Soon afterwards they emigrated to the US.

I looked at a Resume recently in which the persons name on the covering letter differed from his CV, which differed again from his references. It was very confusing.

Was it Asian name in that case?

I can imagine an Asian family registering their child as Lillian or Roger for school although on the birth certificate and at home he or she went by a Chinese, Japanese, or Korean name, so that teachers wouldn't have to deal with that name. And once it was the "official" school name it might find its way onto other documents.

Computers make more problems with this kind of thing. I have a colleague named, let us say, Jamal Abu Mazen. That has to break down as given name = Jamal, family (or father's) name = Abu Mazen. It took me a while to find him on the directory because he's in the directory as Mazen, Jamal A.

I don't know why people need weird names anyway. If English names were good enough for Jesus Christ, they're good enough for me.

I missed that line the first time around. Good one.

#8 -- That's the same kind of thing that happens with people who have a name along the lines of du Pont, von Trier, van Gogh.