The Dynamics of Ethnic Name Maintenance and Change: Cases of Korean ESL Immigrants in Toronto

Abstract

In this paper, I analysed Korean ESL immigrants' ethnic name changing phenomena. The interpretive discourse analyses of the 15 interview data obtained from six new immigrants, documented that four of them maintained their Korean names, whereas others anglicised their names depending upon their subjective identity positionings in a new society. In particular, the sense of imagined communities (Wenger, 1998) was of utmost importance to the participants in the study. Participants, who hypothesised imagined communities or a third culture Kramsch (1993) mainly for their jobs, were willing to change their Korean names, whereas participants, who resisted habitus (Bourdieu, 1977, 1998, 2000) reorganisation by remaining in Korean-speaking communities in Toronto, demonstrated little sensitivity to the intricate relationship between name and identity or emotionally resisted the name change. The findings corroborate that ESL immigrants' name changing practices reflect their sense of ethnic identity, and suggest how individuals' unique sociocultural milieux impact name maintenance or change.