Since I am Chinese, I obviously had a Chinese name at some point of my life. My Chinese name is Yuchen. Since I was born on the year of the dragon, my parents named me water dragon. They thought that water will nourish a dragon and thus my name is formed. The interesting thing is that Chinese women don't adopt their husbands' last name when they get marriage, instead they keep their own last name. However due to coincidence, both of my parents have "Wang" as their last name, so there is no surprise that I got that last name. When we migrated to America, I changed my name to James because my parents felt like the name fits me well. Sometimes at home, my parents still call me by the name "Yuchen" but anywhere else I was called "James".
I think both my Chinese and American name fit me well because they successfully portrayed my personality just by a few simple letters. However my Chinese name had held me back a few times in my life, especially when we came to America. The name seemed so different from everyone's name so I was reluctant at first to tell people my Chinese name and kept it a secret. Now, I feel totally secure when people tease me about my name because I know it doesn't really matter anymore. The name "James" seemed to boost my confidence when talking to people because it is a more common name and doesn't feel out of tune with the other names.
Gogol finds his name bothering because he also thinks that his name prevented him from making a good first impression. He feels like the name is out of place and is therefore different from every other name. He believes his Indian name to be a hindrance on his road to becoming an American.
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