Chinese Name - Chinese Names in English

Chinese Names in English

Chinese people, except for those traveling or living outside of China, rarely reverse their names to the western naming order (given name, then family name). Western publications usually preserve the Chinese naming order, with the family name first, followed by the given name. Beginning in the early 1980s, in regards to people from Mainland China, western publications began using the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system instead of earlier romanization systems; this resulted from the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China in 1979. The usual presentation of Chinese names in English differs from the usual presentations of modern Japanese names, since modern Japanese names are usually reversed to fit the western order in English. Edith Terry, author of How Asia Got Rich, said that "it was one of the ironies of the late twentieth century that Japan remained stranded in the formal devices underlining its historical quest for equality with the West, while China set its own terms, in language as in big-power politics." As of 1989, Pinyin became the preferred romanization system in works discussing contemporary China, while English-language books relevant to Japanese history still used the Wade-Giles system to romanize Chinese names more often than other romanization systems. As of 1993, Wade-Giles was still used in Taiwan.