Facebook: Do you have a Chinese name?

Do you have a Chinese name?

I’m currently spending some time in Taiwan, and shortly after my arrival here I was greeted by Facebook with the alert box (above) asking me if I have a Chinese name. As an ethnic Chinese who is mostly based in Singapore, that question piqued my curiosity… Why is Facebook asking? And how did Facebook determine who to ask for their Chinese name?

Perhaps the question is triggered by my Taiwan IP address. Or perhaps Facebook knows that many of my friends in Taiwan have already keyed in their Chinese name on the social network and wanted me to join in the fun. This “add-your-Chinese-name” service wasn’t available to me five months ago when I was last in Taiwan. But now that it’s there I’m pleased to finally have it.

Clicking on the ‘Add name’ button will lead you to your account settings. However, I realized that my Chinese name will not appear on the profile page even after adding it on Facebook because the social network knows that I’m using its service in English. According to Facebook, my Chinese name will only appear when my Taiwanese friends who use Facebook in traditional Chinese view my profile.

If you want the world to see your Chinese name, you can simply key it in as your alternate name and check the ‘Include this in my profile’ box. The alternate name option is available to all Facebook users but not the language-specific name option. My friends in Singapore don’t have that. The language-specific name option is available to Japanese and Korean Facebook users too. There’s nothing for China though, since Facebook is blocked in that country.

While most of Facebook’s translation works are user generated, the social network understands that it is impossible to ask translation enthusiasts to translate other users’ name. That’s way too creepy. So prompting users to key in their own language-specific name makes sense. It is also a good step to further localize Facebook for specific countries where English is widely used but isn’t the dominant language. It does help make the Facebook community more integrated across geographical borders. For a Singaporean Chinese like myself to have your Chinese name engraved on your Facebook profile, it surely makes you look more approachable to Taiwanese users.

And all these experiments with language-specific names will prove very handy if Facebook ever does have a chance to enter China.

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