Alternatives to creating a fake call center name
It seems to be a formal rule that is recorded in the constitution of India, that all call centre workers will have fake names — or be immediately throw in jail for not shunning the culture that they are from. But, why not have a policy of having TWO NAMES…
I personally have a name that I translate into many languages. I have an English name, a French name (spelled the same as the English name, but pronounced differently), a Spanish name, an Arabic name, a Hebrew name, and lastly a very classy Chinese name which sounds surprisingly similar to one of their literary scholars (which was a complete accident). If I go to China and people ask my name, I say, “Wo de zhong-wen ming-zi shi ma jue min”. That means, my Chinese name is Ma Jue Min. I make it clear that this is not my legal name, but this is the Chinese version of my name — Horse Awaken the People. Incidentally, the name was meant to be the closest phonetic match of my English name, but has a very poetic meaning in Chinese, and is almost identical to Li Jue Min who was a literary scholar in China — a happy coincidence.
In any case, living in America, we meet people from all around the world. Before 911, I met a guy from Lebanon. If I met him today, he might hide his real name for obvious reasons. He introduced himself this way — “Hi, my name is Ousama, but my friends call me Oos — Just call me Oos”.
So, picture a South Indian call center worker being honest about his name and location. “Hi, my name is Rama-Chandra Sri-Kumar Venkatchalam — but, you can just call me Mike… everybody else does”
There is a legitimate reason to adapt an alias name if your name is too hard for Americans to say. Please remember that many Americans live in places like New York where we hear 30 languages every single day, every day of our lives. We are used to hearing names of all types ranging from African, Indian, French, German, Chinese, Korean, etc. For cosmopolitan Americans, being able to pronounce a name like Rajesh would be a piece of cake. But, for whitebred folks in Oklahoma or North Dakota who don’t have much diversity at all, it might be an issue to grasp ANY Indian name at all. To me it seems logical to keep your real name unless it is just impossible for more than 5% of Americans to remember or pronounce.