my mom gave me my name and nothings going to change that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTz4I_hPm78

I too have used a Japanese name with Katakana characters instead of my western name.

Some websites insist you use a Japanese name and phone number to buy something (theatre tickets, some hotel reservations). Same when you try to buy tickets from a kiosk such as a Loppi machine at Lawsons. A few hotels I have stayed at would not let you book without a Hiragana name, and they always seem a bit surprised when I show up with a very non Japanese appearance.

My surname has a lot of "L's" in it seems virtually impossible for most Japanese to pronounce. Some hotel clerks summon up the courage to ask me how to pronounce it and get relieved when I use a Japanese approximation

My Japanese "name" was awarded to me courtesy of dual-sided business cards provided to me for a Tokyo company trip. My English surname translated to "Rozu." It might have been nice if they'd told me. It took me a couple of days before I understood that Rozu-san meant me.

I would never adopt a local name on my own. If while working in Spain people started calling me Pedro instead of Peter I certainly wouldn't object but I would never introduce myself that way.

In Japan, I used the katakana-ized version of my English name. This was more necessity than choice, as most/many places couldn't enter non-Japanese characters into their databases (including, for instance, my national insurance card).

In China, it's very common IME for foreigners to adopt a Chinese name, which often bears little or no relation to their original name. In my case, my Chinese professor in undergrad spent several days contemplating a "good" name for me, and I've used it ever since. I've gotten complements on how auspicious it is, so apparently she did a good job.

Thanks for the input, everyone! To summarize what I'm hearing so far, it sounds like (please chime in with corrections as appropriate):

- for Japan, common practice is to use the closest pronounceable approximation of your English name in Japanese kana when necessary for written documents and to aid native speakers in pronunciation. (Folks have variously said they used either hiragana or katakana for this purpose - is there a standard for which alphabet to use in this situation?)

- for China, common practice is to adopt a localized name (but only for long-term visitors who speak Mandarin, because using one creates the expectation that you speak the language.). It sounds like this should be done with the oversight of a native speaker, to make sure you don't pick an inadvisable set of characters.

- for Korea, no need to translate (makes sense having visited Seoul - with the American influence over the last 50 years, English proficiency seemed higher than elsewhere in Asia)

For other European markets, no need to localize (as expected, as English is rapidly becoming the lingua franca of modern Europe) - although flexibility on pronunciation makes good practical sense, especially if your name has a local equivalent or is difficult to pronounce ordinarily.

While I am Canadian, I am of Japanese ethnicity so while we were living in China, I went with a totally different Chinese name.

During the anti Japanese campaign in China, my ethnicity never became an issue. They never knew.

Most thought that I was a child of an overseas Chinese, especially with a name like Mr. Chen.

.....

I go by an altered version of my actual first name on a regular basis which can get a bit confusing because some will use that but then others will use other adjusted versions of my name or try to stick with the real name without really knowing how to pronounce it properly. This means there's at least four first name variations for me in the office and company at-large. Some people are genuinely surprised when I show them my real name on paper.

Katakana is usually used in translation from a Latin based language, but there are no hard rules.

Katakana is used in translating names from any foreign language, except that:

(a) Chinese names are almost always translated into the Japanese transliteration of the Chinese characters -- Mao Zedong becomes "Mo Takuto." This can be confusing as hell sometimes, e.g. when a person named "Huang" is called "Ko-san" in Japanese. (Or sometimes it's just funny -- recently I have been working with a lawyer named Xiong, whose name is the Chinese character for "bear;" my Japanese coworkers refer to her as "Kuma-sensei" using the Japanese word for "bear.") There is usually no hint as to the original Chinese pronunciation; they just use the characters (which are not phonetic) as-is.

(b) Korean names are usually written in Chinese characters but pronounced using a katakana version of the Korean pronunciation. This is not as consistent, and sometimes you will see the Japanese readings of the characters used instead (for example, everyone used to call Kim Jong-il "Kimu Shonichi"). Sometimes they write Korean names in katakana and skip the Chinese characters entirely.

But if your name is Arabic, Thai, Hindi or whatever, it will be transliterated in katakana.

Interesting, I thought that was the case but could only vouch for Latin based and kinda Cyrillic based.

When my girlfriend gets back I will have to ask her about this topic as she is the language guru of the family.

When I studied Chinese, our teachers gave everyone a Chinese name. Some of the students were Chinese-Americans and already had such a name, although perhaps in a regional dialect such as Cantonese, so the teachers converted those names to Mandarin. My Chinese surname is Sang, written with the character for "mulberry."

I don't know any Westerner who uses a Chinese name when speaking a European language, but it just seems natural when speaking Mandarin.

One of the first things we learned when I studied Japanese was how to write our names in katakana. There are standard substitutions for sounds that do not exist in Japanese, so that "v" is transcribed as "b." The only final consonant allowed in a syllable is "n," so my family name is Sa-n-do-ne-su in katakana, but I use the katakana form of my name only when speaking Japanese.

Cantonese isn't a dialect.

When I taught in China, many of my students adopted non-Chinese names. Creamy, Wallace and Ibrahimović (who, c/o the OMNI forum I came to learn is a Swedish football player) are just a few examples. Lots of Apples too.

Presumably, this was to make it easier for foreigners to pronounce. Why stop there? Why not change the surname too? Sarcasm aside, my name is simple enough for much of the world to say, but I'm open to suggestions.