A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Chinese people choose really weird English names. I understand to some degree the need for Chinese people to adopt an English name; unless you were a Mandarin major at Shanghai University you won't be able to pronounce any of them. The problem is they never want to settle for regular names, so you can throw the 'top baby names of the year' list when guessing Chinese people's names. Every name I'm about to tell you is the chosen English name of students I teach, so trust me all these names are real

Some students choose names of famous celebrities. This is probably the best and most reasonable way to choose English names. Phoebe is named after the character in friends; Fred is named after Fred Flinstone - simple but effective. Sometimes, this goes terribly wrong, as is the case with 'Cornfield'. He likes the star of Prison Break, Michael Scofield, so he wanted a name with 'field' in it and chose 'corn'. Bad choice, Cornfield.

Then there is 'Aphrolinde'. She originally chose to be called 'Aphrodite, but people suggested that has more negative overtones than she'd like, so she changed it to 'Aphrolinde'. The best part is that this is one of the quietest, most shy girls in our school!

But some students actually found a way to choose a ridiculous name which makes you pause and go, "Heck Yeah!" The first two that come to mind are 'Future' and 'Nike'. Not sure how 'Future' got her name, but 'Nike' is named after his shoes. Another surprisingly alright name is 'Sunflower'. Rounding out this category would be the slightly confused student named 'Professor'.

On the other hand, I don't yet have a Chinese name. If I chose 'Dan', it would translate to being a royal reddish color, but that's way not cool enough. I'm looking for something closer to 'great warrior of intellect' or something, perhaps 'he who sleeps with buffalo'. Whatever I choose, it won't be 'Cornfield'.