Malaysian Chinese - Name Format

Name Format

Non-Mandarin

Before Mandarin gained popularity among Malaysian Chinese in the late 20th century, Malaysian Chinese romanized their names according to the their respective Chinese dialects. For example, the Hakka name 葉亞來 would be written "Yap Ah Loy", and the Hokkien name 林梧桐 would be written as "Lim Goh Tong".

Mandarin

In line with the rise of Mandarin as a lingua franca among Malaysian Chinese in the later half of the 20th century, younger Malaysian Chinese tend to retain the dialectical pronunciation of their surname while using the Mandarin pronunciation for the given name.

For example, the Cantonese name 陳永聰 ( 陈永聪, Chen Yongcong) is romanized as Chan Weng Choong.

Still more recently, the given name will be written in the official pinyin romanization, although often retaining the Malaysian Chinese tendency to treat each character as a separate word. Chan Yung Choong might start writing his name as Chan Yong Cong.

English

Some Malaysian Chinese also adopt an English given name. English given names are normally written before the Chinese name. For example, 楊紫瓊 goes by the name Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng.

Muslims

Non-Muslims who marry a Muslim in Malaysia must convert to Islam. Such converts normally adopt a Muslim name to use in addition to their original name. These are not usually the long Arabic names but just a shorter one – e.g., Abdullah Tan Yew Leong.