Import From China Business
A practical guide for starting a small business
2010-
Import from China
Sell on eBay
Sandra Kell
Ontario, Canada
Baby Products
Profit This Year: $10,400
“I started with $1,000 and began importing baby products from China. I sell them on eBay, Facebook and in my local stores. After 8 months, I am earning $400 a week. I finally quit my day job!”
Learn How
Chinese Baby Names
Having The Same Name As My Brother
Chinese Baby Names follow a naming convention that is very different than the English Baby Names from the Western cultures.
- Chinese Baby Names have three parts to their name: surname, first name, middle name.
Westerners tend to drop their middle name from everyday usage unless it is a formal occasion like weddings and graduation. The Chinese always use all three parts to their name. The middle names are rarely dropped from everyday usage.
Your friends will be called Mary Grace Smith and Peter Joseph Smith.
- In a society that honors family and the elders, the family name or surname always
come first.
So your friend, Peter Joseph Smith when presented to the Chinese should be called:
Smith (Surname) Peter (first name) Joseph (Middle name)
This is important to westerners when they are introduced to the Chinese. Make sure you know which is their surname before you start calling them by name.
In properly written Chinese, my name will be Au Wai Yin. Most Chinese immigrants to North America like myself will switch the surname order to match western cultures to avoid confusion. So my friends growing up in Canada knew me as Wai Yin Au. Confused? - In many Chinese families, there is a common first name for all the boys and a common
name for all the girls in the family.
So my friend, Smith Peter Joseph could have a brother called Smith Peter John. Smith Mary Grace’s sister could be called Smith Mary Sue.
In my case, my brother’s name is Au Wai Hung and you now know my name is Au Wai Yin. - It is the middle name that differentiates two brothers or two sisters. Parents will
call their children by both their first and middle names together.
“Hey, Peter Joseph, bring m my slippers”
“Peter John. Don’t you go hitting your brother Peter Joseph.
You might be thinking that in China, a country with over a billion people, this is leads to mass confusion. Not really.
It is actually a very logical naming methodology similar to the way that scientists use family, genus, species to name plants and animals.
Things People do to their Chinese Baby Names
- When immigrating to a western culture, the Chinese will more than likely put their surname last like all their friends in school.
- In many instances, the middle name will be dropped over time. I kept telling my
teacher and class friends that my name is Wai Yin but they called me Wai for short
anyway. Eventually, I just had to go with it. So did my brother.
That’s how my brother and I growing up both had the same names. Our middle names, my “Yin” and his “Hung” were dropped over time from usage.
Try growing up with the same name as your brother and in his same class in middle school. Now that was traumatic! Eventually, our teachers called my brother Wai #1 and I was Wai #2 because he was my older brother. - Chinese immigrants to western countries will often make up an English name and drop
their Chinese name altogether. For instance, you will often hear that Wing Shun
Tom became William Tom upon arriving to the U.S. or Canada.
As for me, I never adopted a western name even though my neighborhood friends nicknamed me, “Billie”. I am glad. Try explaining that one to the immigration officer at an international airport.
