how to name a child graceful in english

[shuangnick]

I live in China and my boy has been 2years old and it's time for him to have an English name now, a real English name which doesn't look like be given by chinese such as Jack, Peter. his chinese name is Reipeng which pronounced closely as Ray Pun in english, I'd like to name him a little bit similar to his chinese name in pronunciation, or maybe something else meaningful. would u give me any advice? thx a lot.

Rafe is nice and might sound less dated than Ray.

Ray or Raymond is good - classic but not one of those faddy popular names.

Or there's Grayson (nickname 'Gray'), which almost rhymes with Reipeng.

steppemum it's a pleasure u shared a lot of cultural difference and similarity to me. and I've learned a lot of addressing being used in ur daily life. it's surprisingly analogous in some situation that we address an old man as Mr.X, or grandpa/grannny X is ok, too. We usually call somebody Teacher X when we need to turn to help, or when we are initiated into a new situation while others in the situation seems to be more advanced than us. And of course we call the colleagues in other department as "Manager X" as courtesy. for someone with our age that we meet occasionally, we call him handsomeguy/elder brother or call her beauty/little sister.But all these title will be neglected when using English name, we call JackMa instead of President/Boss Ma(MaYun).It's funny to get a further study in name and address from different culture. And I also like the word Rei you suggested to name my boy,it sounds good and also preserve chinese flavor. l love it so much~

StarCrossdSkys you are so kind to give the tender explanation for why Chinese Business operate on an English name. As I considered for 2 reasons.

1.in a foreign enterprise or company runs multinational business , an English name makes them easier to get along with colleagues/customers/merchandisers from all over the world.

2.in a local enterprise, even if no foreigner or multinational business involved, but they still insist on using English name, that's most probably because of they think it's fashionable to have an English name, for sometimes it seems higher up the social scale than they really are.

I think it would be easier if you think of a few names that you like and post them here and people will tell you if they like them or not. Perhaps Google boy's names that mean Grace and start there.

Or have a look at this list of popular british names.

www.mumsnet.com/baby-names/most-popular-baby-names-england-wales

Well what a lovely bunch of comments to wake up to! Thanks all! All your kind comments, jokes and stories. I think I can choose a name for my kid now, and maybe someday in the future you'll meet him occasionally in England and surprisingly find that his name is given by you from very beginning.