It’s the English name I recently chose because people kept having difficulty pronouncing my Chinese name after I arrived in England last year. I really like it, but I’d be interested to hear how it comes across to others, especially Anglophones.
Great name
My grandfather (2nd generation polish immigrant) used to hate having to correct people on how to speak and pronounce our family name and decided to change it to something more “Americanized”. It took me a while to understand why until I spent 40 years having to correct people on the spelling and pronunciation of the Americanized version.
Then, two of my kids turned out to be genderqueer and they both chose new first names for themselves. It was them that I realized that choosing your own name is a powerful thing and you should be proud of forming your own identity. So, ignore everyone who questions choosing your own name. It is a good thing!
As for Cliff, I like it! It sounds good and it’s a name you hear a lot. Stick with it if you also like it!
I would choose something that at least has some resemblance to your real name. I’ve always found it awkward when somebody tells me that their name is, for example, “Liang but call me Peter”. I’d rather call you Liang. Or Larry? Something related to your name somehow.
To me, it’s not really any different than anyone else choosing a nickname and it would be kind of weird if my name was Sean and I decided that everybody should call me Vladimir.
But maybe Cliff does have some resemblance to yours, and I may have had more interaction with Chinese people than your average westerner has.
Meh, I’m on the edge with that one.
Depends what variety of Cliff you are:
This is amazing
No, you’re amazing 5too!
Edit:
Lol I was born in China and now a naturalized US Citizen and I still have the “Pinyin Name” as my legal name… I just never felt like any “English-language name” fits me… cuz they all gives off the “vibe” of being a ABC (American-Born Chinese) and that feels so “phony” to me.
I’d say just embrace your real name…
(I mean usually how it works is that: you just “Anglicanize” it a bit and drop the tones when people ask “how do you pronounce it”)
Cliff Clavin approves.
USA perspective: I have a relative with that name (short for Clifford) who died in the ‘60s. Good name. Not common any more but ready for a fashionable comeback.
I’m over it.
It’s good 👍. People might assume it’s short for Clifford.
Pictured: Clifford
That’s generally a very safe assumption!
Btw, someone mentioned the name being a bit old-timey, and it is. But I think it’s one of the ones that sounds rather stylish & hip, FWIW. Unlike say Melvin, or Herbert, or Horace, or Elmer, or Mortimer, par exemple.
Thats rad, dog!
It’s an old style name, short for Clifford or Clifton. Sounds direct and manly, not common today amongst young people. However, Cliff sounds cool! It is “classic,” like someone else said. It would be memorable to others for sure. :)
This guy
Him or the big red dog are where my mind goes.
I used to work with a guy named Cliff. He was a really swell fellow. Sounds like a good name to me.
It’s a bit old fashioned and I’ll admit, I do associate it with a big red dog from some children’s books. That said, I like it and I think it’s really cool when folks’ English names are uncommon
Sounds a bit old-timey. I refuse to believe that there are people younger than 60 years old with that name.
What’s old is new again. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some recent baby names that I would place more in the turn of the 20th century. Reusing older, creating totally new, or taking known names and spelling them oddly. They’ll all have critics.
Names like Agatha and Edith and Florence are coming around again in kids, because they were popular around the 1920s and so the generation who had them are mostly now all dead.
Which means the names are once more free from expectations and ‘available’.
If you name a child something that had a huge burst in popularity only sixty or seventy years ago however, the holders of the name are generally still alive and almost all old, so it still has a strong connotation of being an “old-person name”
So yeah. Old names become new and fashionable again if you wait. But the trick is to wait long enough.
Ouch. I mean, you’re not wrong… But still.
