I have a Chinese name!

Today it was a fun day, I got to choose my Chinese name! Let me explain.

Wu Hao (a Microsoft colleague from Microsoft China) who is deeply involved in growing the SaaS business in China is spending some time with us in Redmond. One of his tasks while he is here, is to take the content we are creating and adapting it to the Chinese market.

Today he asked me how he should be adapting my name. I was at first a bit surprised by the request, but after a while, I suggested a few random names that sounded very Chinese to me, but apparently did not mean anything, how surprising :)

Fortunately, one of the proposals appeared to be very close to a possible Chinese name. A few minor tweaks later (e.g. changing "gi" to "ji") and voila, I had a Chinese name.

I will be now known in the Middle Kingdom as Wu Ji Pao.

Below an attempt of explanation of how this name came about.