In pursuit of new lows In order to attract more auditory qidian introduced quite a few novels with western names in their recent waves of new works. You would think that it's nothing special (and I thought so too) but apparently the things are not so simple here. It turns out that in original works all the names were normal chinese ones, moreover not only character names were changed, even novel titles were sacrificed to gods affected during the translators' spasms artistic inspirations. According to some conspirologists expert analytics in comment sections, it was done in order to prevent readers from finding raws or looking for these novels on MTL-websites. Though somewhat absurd, it sounds strangely believable for some special reasons. After all, some of the best 'creations' of professional qidian's translators are at exactly the same level as barely edited MTL text, so it wouldn't be a surprise if they are trying to avoid scary MTL competirors some awkward situations. Western names are ok, in fact I didn't suspect anything at first and tried reading a few of such novels myself, but they all were unreadable. Not only novels' quality was low, but all the names they've chosen are cringy AF. Some examples: Joelson, Linky (Argh, my eyes!!!), Locke, Max, Mike (Tom, Dick and Harry of qidian fantasy), Sullo, Maas, Giles, Eddie Edwards etc. These are the names of protagonists, not some random side characters. Most of them don't really bother me, but 'Linky' whom I've seen yesterday while looking at some random story description completely exceeded my SAN value and triggered me. For fcks sake how the hell are people supposed to read novel with linky as a protagonist in it? I wonder what a hellish genius came up with this awesome name. Does anyone know the exact reason why this bullshit is happening on qidian? Have you tried to read these novels? Is there by any chance something good that I've missed among them? (I've stopped even looking at them after trying 3 or 4 of them. My experience was very bad with them).
The most common generic one I have seen is John, Sean, Carlos, Mike, Edward, Smith, I don't remember any female western names showing up tho because most of those women aren't important enough to show up in the story more than 1-2 times before you never see them again. Jane <--- probably the only one I can remember since she comes out more than a few time in My wife is a beautiful CEO.
Linky is what happens when you fear the lawyers from Nintendo. Cause Linky sounds like a nickname a parent would give someone named Link. Other than that, no problem with western names. I can't even remember most CN main character names sometimes when they are chineses. But it gets weirder when they start changing western names... to Frozen...
Qidian owns the IP so I doubt it's the translators call to change the names. I would assume QI is doing it to "appeal" to Western audiences. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, it's really jarring to read about reincarnated Mike going around faceslapping a bunch of little kids and flaunting his wealth, since those aren't typical Western fantasy tropes. One conspiracy theory I've read that is somewhat believable is that QI isn't interested in continuing to do translations of their existing IP long term because paying the translators cuts into the profit margin too much. Westernize the names of characters -> attract more Western readers -> get them to self pub on Webnovel -> cut translations -> profit.
It seems to be a method to appeal to a mode western audience but it comes of as unnatural. Kinda breaks the flow and the immersion. Especially in cultivation themed novels I would say.
It sounds so unnatural probably cause translators got these names from some random name generator. Otherwise all these names wouldn't be so simple and retarded like locke linky etc. It's not like there are no good/popular CN novels with western names. Lord of the Mysteries will probably be the most popular example. The difference here is though that author put quite a bit of efforts into it, and qidian's translators pressed 'generate' button, and then slapped the table with a shout - "Okay, Linky, I choose You!"
Why would you expect good name choices from those specific "translators"? The concept itself is fine, though. Asian names typically have a meaning (in the characters) that we Westerners won't understand anyway, so why not change it to a name that's easier for us to remember? Though if they still set it in China specifically it would be weird.
There is also the issue of foreign novels and only the main character has a westernized name... So it's John Doe with his friend Chu Lin and Su Li in their fight against the antagonist Lu Bo. I would prefer if they take some German colors. I would call my protagonist Blau with his friends Gelb and Weiss in their fight against Schwarz.