Can foreigners register a Chinese version of their name for business purposes?

[gneutmil]

If you are a Westerner and acquire a full Chinese name, can this be officially acknowledged or registered in some way? Perhaps through a government agency or notarization? So that this name can be used in China where a Western name is hard to understand or cannot be used, for example for buying property or obtaining licenses, etc. Does anyone have experience?

[zhouhaochen]

honestly speaking, I dont think so. I have several friends who tried, but I never heard of anyone who managed to. If you find a way, do please post about it!

[xiaoxiaocao]

Drivers licenses are possible. I met a guy from Sweden who had one in his Chinese name. Don't think your chances for buying property would be quite so high.

Story about getting license -

http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-stories/how-i-got-my-chinese-drivers-license-20100218/

[lordnikon]

if you live in china and get a residence permit in china, you must have a chinese name. They will force you to choose one and it become your legally recognized name in china. When you get licenses or buy property, which can only been done if you already have a residence permit they will right down your chinese name and passport number, they dont seem to care what your english name is. Actually they only seem to care what your passport number is. I am not sure how much legal standing your chinese name actually ever has as most chinese names are so common, id card numbers are what are most looked at

[liuzhou]

if you live in china and get a residence permit in china, you must have a chinese name.

Not true. Not even close.

I have a residence permit. I have had for the last 15 years. I do not have a Chinese name. I don't want one. I'm not Chinese. There is no Chinese name on my resident permit and nor has there ever been one involved in the application process.

My driving licence shows no Chinese name either, nor did I give them one. I couldn't have done. I don't have one!

[zhouhaochen]

I have a residence permit too and no Chinese name on it. I do have a Chinese name and wouldn't mind having it on there (even though I am not Chinese) but was never presented with the option. @lordnikon can you provide a bit more information on this?

[gneutmil]

Thanks. Sounds like putting your Chinese name on a driver's license or residence permit are possible options (though the prospect of getting a driver's license in China is intimidating!).

[Takeshi]

I have a resident permit and I wish I could have a Chinese name too. In fact, when I wrote the resident permit application form I wrote my Chinese name in the box, but they just ignored it and put my English form on the paper.

I do have a student ID card with only my Chinese name on it, and the student ID cards seem to be accepted as basic ID here in China so it works for what it works for, but I'm not sure if you could do everything in your student card, and it's probably not a smart idea since you'll lose it when you graduate.

The big problem is that your passport, which is essentially your main form of ID in China, probably doesn't have your name in Chinese on it. I guess if you are Japanese and by some chance of luck your Japanese name has the exact same characters as your Chinese name you could get away with writing it in Chinese characters on official forms and stuff. (Some of my friends say they don't though, because the Japanese character forms are a little different so they want to be safe.) Seriously, the Canadian government should allow people to have legal names in Chinese characters already.

[roddy]

Back in the days when the residence permit was a separate green booklet it would have a transliteration of your English name - plus loads of other info, can't remember what exactly. Employer's full name and address, your address, maybe even home address overseas. The Foreign Experts Certificate also had the transliteration. The residence permit is now of course a visa-like sticker in your passport and all that information resides in the PSB's supercomputers. Not sure what the story is with FECs these days.

Anyway, that was a transliteration, not a chosen Chinese name. Maybe some people managed to get a 'proper' Chinese name in that space. Personally I'd tend to stick to my name as in my passport for anything official, unless you can get both side by side. Too much chance of one day having a lot of hassle proving that the 周老外 on one document is really the Jonny Foreigner on another.

the prospect of getting a driver's license in China is intimidating

It's the driving which is intimidating. The license is the easy bit. Infer cause and effect as you will.

[liuzhou]

No Roddy.

I still have one of those little green residence permit books from way back. It has no Chinese transliteration of my name. It does have my then employer's name and address. Nothing about my home address overseas - even I don't know that!

I also have a current and an old Foreign Expert's Certificate. Neither has a Chinese name.

[roddy]

This is I think what mine looked like - it's hard to make out, but the name bit has, I think, 'in Chinese' and 'in foreign language' or something similar. I'm not sure if I still have any of mine, not to hand anyway. I could be wrong about the FEC. And lots of other stuff. But I sure as hell remember painstakingly copying my 'name' out of the resident permit for writing practice. So I'm going to stick to my story.

But, and obviously, different strokes for different 省s.

[carlo]

Anyway, that was a transliteration, not a chosen Chinese name. Maybe some people managed to get a 'proper' Chinese name in that space. Personally I'd tend to stick to my name as in my passport for anything official, unless you can get both side by side. Too much chance of one day having a lot of hassle proving that the 周老外 on one document is really the Jonny Foreigner on another.

That's exactly what I had on my residence permit (and work permit). My three-character Chinese name under my original one, IIRC.

And my driving licence to this day has the Chinese name only. In general, it seems that there is a certain amount of flexibility with names in China that is uncommon in Europe. One of my bank accounts has a slightly altered version of my English name, as the correct one wouldn't fit in the allotted space on the form. The bank mainly looks at my ID numbers, as others have said.