| Transliteration of Chinese |
|---|
| Mandarin |
| Wu |
| Yue |
| Min |
| Gan |
| Hakka |
| Xiang |
| Polylectal |
| See also |
Personal names inHong Kong reflect the co-official status ofCantonese andEnglish in Hong Kong. A total of 25.8% ofHongkongers have English given names as part of their legal names; a further 38.3% of Hongkongers go by English given names even though those are not part of their legal names. The two figures add up to a total of 64.1% of Hongkongers having English names, according to a survey of 2049 respondents in 2015.[1]
For example, a person who has Kuo as his surname, Chi Yung as his Cantonese given name and Peter as his legal English given name, would have his name rendered as either "KUO Chi Yung Peter" or "KUO Chi Yung, Peter" (withcomma) on court papers,[2] in the format of "Surname + Cantonese given name + optionalcomma + English given name", though non-court commentaries might render his name as Peter Kuo Chi-yung (withhyphen) or Peter Kuo.[3]
Generally, the Cantonese majority employ one or anotherromanization of Cantonese.[4] However, non-Cantonese immigrants may retain their hometown spelling in English. For example, use ofShanghainese romanization in names (e.g.Joseph Zen Ze-kiun) is more common inHong Kong English than in official use inShanghai whereMandarin-basedpinyin has been in official use since the 1950s.[5]
Chinese names and sometimesChinese surnames in Hong Kong may be supplemented by or replaced by an English name when using English. The use of English names in Hong Kong is not well researched or documented.[6] English names in Hong Kong can use various proper names and nouns that are not often found in theWestern world, with some examples beingRimsky Yuen,York Chow, andMoses Chan. Inspiration for English names in Hong Kong can come from the names of months, sports brands, and luxury labels. More conventional English names can undergo distortion by the addition, substitution, or deletion of letters (e.g. Sonija, Garbie, Kith), as well using suffixes like-son (e.g. Rayson). Others adopt a Western name that sounds similar phonetically to their Chinese name, such asHacken Lee from Lee Hak-kan (李克勤).[7] These categories (addition, substitution, phonetic-based, etc.) are the fundamental ways of generating creative Hong Kong names.[8]
In case a married person uses the spouse's surname, themaiden name is usually placed after that surname. For instance, the 4th Chief Executive of Hong KongCarrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor[9] has Carrie and Yuet-ngor as the English and Cantonese personal names respectively, Cheng as the maiden name, and Lam from the surname of her husbandLam Siu-por. In the English-speaking world, married women are sometimes referred by "first name + married name" style, which is Carrie Lam in the example above,[10] while locally as "married name + maiden name + personal name" style.[11]
Such well-known Hong Kong names as Shaw in the movie industry, Pao and Tung in shipping, Woo and Tang in textiles all demonstrate the leading roles played by Shanghai business emigres in the Hong Kong economic success story