海外华人姓名使用情况调查——以新马华人姓名为例

A Survey of Names of Overseas Chinese: A Case Study of Names of Overseas Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia

新加坡与马来西亚华人通常都有以汉字记录的中文姓名和以罗马字母拼写的英文姓名,双名现象是多元文化影响下的产物,也是海外华人为适应住在国文化和保留自身文化特征而采取的策略。新马华人的中文姓名继承中华姓名传统,人名用字与文化内涵深受中华文化影响,同时带有明显的南方方言文化色彩。英文姓名大多为中文姓名的罗马字母转写形式,记录的是中文姓名的方言读音,采用的多为教会罗马字和威妥玛式等旧式拼音方案。随着华文教育的发展以及中文罗马字母拼写法统一规范的制订,开始出现了以《汉语拼音方案》拼写姓名的趋势。

The Overseas Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia generally have Chinese names recorded in Chinese characters and English names spelled in Roman letters.The phenomenon of double names is the product of multiculturalism.It is also a strategy adopted by overseas Chinese to adapt themselves to the culture of the nation where they inhabit with the preservation of their own cultural characteristics.The Chinese name of the overseas Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia carries on this tradition,whose character and cultural connotation display profound influence of Chinese culture and distinct cultural color of the Southern dialect.The English name is mostly the Roman alphabetic transliteration form of the Chinese name,which records its pronunciation in Chinese dialects and adopts the conventional Pinyin schemes such as Missionary Romanization and Wade System.With the development of Overseas Chinese education and the standardization of Roman alphabetic spelling form of Chinese,there has merged the trend of adopting the Chinese Pinyin scheme in the spelling form of the Chinese name.