Three real-life scenarios:
1. As an Indian graduate student in the US, I met a number of Chinese students who had adopted a Western nickname. But this name never replaced their real name in emails. To present oneself in writing only with a nickname or false name is not the same as adopting a nickname to fit in a foreign country. The first practice is fraud; the second is to integrate in society.
2. I worked for a few months in a large American technology company with lots of Indians, and many of them were from south India — the home of very long, cumbersome names. They proudly used their full names or shortened forms and never adopted Western names. They were respected for their work and didn’t have to fight some imagined prejudice.
3. The sordid IT staffing industry in the US is full of Indians with fake Western names. Why? They are not respected for their work, and all they can hope for is to fool people into thinking they are not Indian.
The third scenario is what we’re seeing with predatory publishers, not the first or second.
Publishing is not Hollywood or Bollywood, where actors are bestowed new screen names if their real names are not charming or appealing.
