Indonesian chinese name

During the period of Dutch colonial rule, most of the Chinese who came to the Dutch East Indies spoke the Minsk languages . Officials recorded their names in the documents from the hearing (from a dialect pronunciation) using the rules of the Dutch language . As a result, for example, the Chinese surname Lin (林) turned into “Liem”, Chen (陳) into “Tan”, Huang (黃) into “Oei,” Wu (吳) into “Go,” Guo (郭) - in “Kwee”, Yang (楊) - in “Njoo”, etc. In addition, due to the fact that there was no standard system for romanizing the Minsk dialects of the Chinese language, writing the same surname in Latin letters could to differ: for example, the surname of Go could be written not only as “Kwee”, but also as “Kwik”, “Que” or “Kwek”. This system of recording Chinese names continued to be used after Indonesia gained independence, and is still found among immigrants in Europe and America.

The Indonesian government has twice changed the official system of Romanization of Chinese names. In 1947, the combination “oe”, which came from the Dutch language, was replaced by “u”, as a result of which, for example, the name “Loe” turned into “Lu”. In 1972, the “j” that came from the Dutch language was replaced by “y”, as a result of which, for example, the surname “Njoo” became “Nyoo”.

When President Suharto came to power in Indonesia, his cabinet passed a law in 1966 obliging people of Chinese descent living in Indonesia to change their names in the Indonesian fashion. This has been accomplished in various ways.

Some of the Chinese living in Indonesia took Western names and Javanese or Sundan last names. Moreover, it could well turn out that two people with the same Chinese surname, choosing a Javanese surname similar in sound, will choose completely different ones, as a result of which the surname “Lin” (林) in one case will be replaced by “Limanto” and in the other - on “Halim” (both contain the syllable “lim” - the Minsk record of the surname “Lin”).

Others simply translated their surnames from Chinese to Javanese, as a result of which the same surname Lin passed into “Wanandi” (“ling” translates from Chinese to “forest”, which will be “wana” in Javanese, “-ndi” is a masculine suffix kind).

“Indonesiaization” of Chinese names by adding Western or Indonesian prefixes or suffixes has led to the emergence of so many exotic variations that Indonesian Chinese origin can still be easily distinguished by last name.

Following the resignation of Suharto, Indonesians of Chinese descent were again allowed to use their Chinese surnames. For some of them, this question was indifferent, and they left the “Indonesianized” names and surnames. Others returned to Chinese names, but if some of them used the old notation, others chose to write Chinese names in Latin using the modern pinyin system.

• Indonesian name
• Chinese name

• Irzanti Sutanto "Ganti Nama di Kalangan Keturunan Tionghoa Peraturan dan Kebebasan"