What is your Chinese name?

蒋源 Jiang Yuan

What does your name mean?

My parents told me that this name was decided before I was even born, it was given by my mother. All three members of the family have two-word names instead of the common three-word names. She gave me this name because she liked the pronunciation of yuan, if I was a boy back then, she would gave me the word 原 which is also pronounced as yuan. I personally like how it sounds too!

What is your English name? (Please write in pinyin if you don’t have one)

I used Jane back in high school.

Who gave you your English name?

Myself, I came up with the name Jane in kindergarten or elementary school, back then my teacher is asking everyone’s English name. But I don’t have one, the only English name I could think of at the time was Jane Austen, so I just went by it.

Is there a pronunciation/meaning connection between your English name and Chinese name?

Jane sounds a little like Jiang and they started with the same initial, Jane Jiang kinda sounds like the name of super hero lol.

Have you ever abandoned your English name? What was the reason?

When I was in high school, I started to think more about my identity, and it felt very painful to adopt a name in someone else’s language. I was a completely different person when I was speaking different languages, and many of my gray tumbling thoughts could not be expressed well in English. In high school, I crushed a white male teacher, although he is very sensitive and vulnerable as for a white man. I realized our “sensitivities” are very different, my experience, and my trauma growing up as an Asian is very different from his. That’s when I realize Jane doesn’t represent anything about me, I abandoned it with zero regrets.

Does your name ever give you any funny, embarrassing, or uncomfortable experiences?

When I use Jane as my name, while some people do ask for my real name, most people just accept it (Even if they asked for it they forgot it ). I never experienced any trouble with Jane. But after I change it back, I was asked by a foreign teacher if I was "yuan" of the Chinese currency, and to be honest, even as a joke, I was very offended, I like the meaning of my name, and I don’t want to be associated with currency. It is very annoying when people don’t pay basic respect to my name.

Besides that, Americans can’t remember my name, never pronounce it correctly, and always have to teach it several times (understandable, they haven’t studied Chinese either). But even with all these troubles, It’s still better than being called Jane, at least every time they call me Yuan I feel like they are calling me and not some hypocritical personality.

Do you prefer your Chinese name or your English name? Which name better represents your own identity?

As I mentioned before, I prefer my Chinese name, and Jane itself brings back a lot of painful memories. For example, when I stayed with an American host family over a winter break, while they are very kind, I experienced a lot of mild discrimination like being asked if I ate dogs, which I spent years afterward trying to heal. I went to an international high school where almost everyone had an English name ---- but we were all Chinese, these names are created solely for the convenience of the foreign teachers. I liked the meaning of the Chinese name in its own context, I liked the pronunciation of Yuan, and I liked the way it was written. I finally felt closer to my true self after I changed back to Yuan. When I use Jane, I always feel that it is the name of a white woman living in 19th-century England.