Hi to all, sorry to re-raise English name talks, which seem to have settled down a week ago. I'm a Japanese born Japanese, studied English as a foreign language for a couple of decades (tho' it depends on how you count years), and Korean language for nearly ten years. I never had my "English name" before I was told that I would have a chance to stay in the U.S. as a company-sent visiting researcher at some private university in northern California. To make things short, the reason I decided to use my English name "Nicky" instead of "Naoki" becase it did save me my time to explain or even correct "Ms." to "Mr." After I had arrived at that school, I always introduced myself as "Naoki" and just show them another option to call me "Nicky." I agree with what thinker wrote; using one's native name may help a lot to develop interests to some of the people around. But in reality, you may not have enough time and loooooooong temper to complete your cultural lesson to your colleagues. In my case, I hated to be called as "Nay-Owe-Key" instead of "Now-oh-key," as "Nay-owe-key" sounds in Japanese like "Morning yowing man" or whatever. That, too, helped me to use "Nicky" in English conversation/emails. And then what happened was this BBS thing. Ah. I was addicted to Korean BBS in late 1993, and finally learned that my Japanese name "Naoki" or English nick name "Nicky" sounds like a female name to most of Korean people. Arrgh. It happened again. But I had grown since the first time, now I sometimes use "나옥희" as my Korean name on purpose as a fan. It's kind of srange feeling to be called "언니"from young girls, actually. As far as English conversation or correspondence in Email with Korean friends of mine goes, they prefer to call me "Nicky"." Sometimes they even write it with Hangul as 니키. In many cases I am called "시바타씨(Shibata-Sshi)" "형" "Naoki님(-nim)" "오빠(Obba)" no troubles so far. So my start of using "Nicky" seems that I hated to see "Ms." before my family name, and just wish if English language has neutral expression just like Japanese "-san" or Korean "-sshi." After all, using English name in English speaking society is not a bad thing, and it's all up to you to decide whether you use English name or not. Sometimes using English may help you, other times you may miss your Korean name for some reasons. NS "나옥희."