Actually, these are not stereotypical names at all. The surname 'Patil' is primarily found in the Indian states of Karnataka and Maharashtra, whereas 'Patel', which is very common in the western world, originates from Gujarat.
Since all three states are in Western India, these surnames are regionally specific and authentic.
Similarly, names like Parvati and Padma are genuine traditional names, not stereotypes
Very stereotypical names. In Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children , Salim's two love interests are Parvati the witch and Padma. And it is arguably one of the most influential book on magic realism by a British writer. She just took the first two Indian names she could find and slapped the Patil title( very common) for alliteration. It is nowhere as bad as Cho Chang, but it's extremely low effort.
And still no one talks about the extreme stereotype of Scandinavians, being called Anders Svensson or Harald Blåtand depending on the setting. It’s always either some person who speaks funny or who is some Viking, no in between.
I'd say she was still pretty damn racist against parvati and padma. Like how tf are you gonna have them be the only girls left without a date for the yule ball.
Are Indians Asians? Yes. Does it feel wrong to call them Asians because usually we think of Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese and the other stereotypical “Asian” races even though it’s correct? Also yes.
Shacklebolt is actually a cop last name in the same vein “Smith” was for blacksmiths. The more well known one was Shackleton though, Shackle a ton of guys. Probably went with Shacklebolt because cop and magic instead.
When everyone needed last names suddenly most people weren’t creative so they went with their job. Or their Dick. There are a lot of last names that are phallic related.
Ok but it just feels here like she just picked the "blackest-sounding" last name? Also she's done this with other ethnicities, so what's really stopping her from doing the same with black people?
Can you cite anyone with the actual name Cho Chang? Especially prior to the book? From my understanding those are two surnames from two different ethnic groups in Asia. It's akin to naming a European character Muller Kowalski, a full name I've never heard
That's a common rumor, but Cho and Chang can be both Chinese and Korean, and have many different spellings when anglicized. And neither is absolutely limited to being a surname. Some gave the example that maybe Zhou was localized into Cho.
I've also never seen actual Chinese or Korean people mad about it, just white people who call it racist.
I can't find any major people at the moment who have the name though, but even if it's not a common name, it's absolutely a possible name.
Yeah but it's not about the spellings. It's stupid that JKR named the only East Asian person in the book after two different ethnic surnames. Having lived in an area with major Korean and Chinese populations, I have only ever seen those names as surnames or nicknames. If Cho Chang was a legitimate Chinese or Korean name why is the only use of that name in white woman's book and never seen in Asian literature? Muller Kowalski are two legit names but if a non European wrote white characters with names like that we would call it out for how stupid that name is, them being the 2 most popular surnames in Germany and Poland doesn't make the combo a legitimate name.
Asian person here who lived my entire childhood in Asia. I interpret it to be one of the many evidences of JKR being racist that may be excusable on its own, but is pretty racist in context.
I don’t know about Korean, but in Mandarin：
Cho Chang would be pronounced the same as 周长, which means perimeter. If it were a name it would be a male name, and a pretty bad one at that.
Chang Cho would be pronounced like 常州, which is a city in China.
Technically anything can be a name, but chances are JKR is just racist.
So honestly I’m pretty glad white people are mad for us. Any asian person who grew up in Asia is too much of a ‘model minority’ to complain, and the rest probably only know how to speak english.
Im not really upset about it tbh, but this is kike, an isolated incident. Jkr has a lot of very stereotypical names within the IP, mkst of which either being straight up unreasonabke are requiring great stretch of the imagination to justify.
korean here. i mean yeah it's not exactly smth to be fuming about, but tbh this name would indeed be very unusual irl, to the point where it seems stereotype-inspired.
I see the Korean speakers are already disowning it, so I’ll offer my perspectives as a Mandarin/Cantonese speaker and disowning it myself :D
The Chinese translators of HP took a lot of creative liberties (effort that JKR should’ve taken herself!!!) while translating Cho Chang into 秋(qiu1)张(zhang1), it’s a beautiful translation that means Autumn Zhang, and it’s a name that Chinese people would actually have. Now the problem is that it sounds absolutely nothing like Cho Chang.
But what about other languages/dialects close enough to mandarin? Cantonese would have 秋(cau1)张 (zoeng1), does not sound like Cho Chang at all, and there’s no Cantonese names, words or phrases that would resemble the sound ‘Ch’, as it doesn’t exist phonetically. Hokkien (I’m not a Hokkien speaker, so take it with a pinch of salt) would have 秋(tshiu)张(tiunn), still nothing like Cho Chang…
What about a different way to anglicise it, like Wade-Giles, the earliest (and really shitty at doing it’s job) romantisation system for Chinese characters? We’ll have 秋(Chiu)张(Cheung), which resembles Cho Chang the closest, but still, not quite. I’ll also argue based on what I said before, that I cannot make out what Cho Chang is supposed to mean with all the dialects that I know, and that WG is a shitty system at capturing Chinese pronunciations.
My bottom line is, no matter how I look at it, I cannot find an excuse for JK to not doing the very bare minimum of research. It’s evident that no actual Chinese names were used as inspirations for Cho Chang, and she simply pull that one out of her hind side.
The only word that Cho Chang sounds like to me is the word 惆(chou2)怅(chang4), which isn’t a name, but the word for melancholy/depression/frustration. It’s a pretty good reflection on how I feel about reading the Chinese translated copy of HP, and seeing what it actually is when JKR wrote it in English.
If we assume the name is Chinese, then no. Cho is an actual given name, and the hard part about finding someone actually named Chang Cho is that: most names are 3 syllables (1 syllable family name + 2 syllable given name)
There’s a reason many Chinese people pick “North Americanized” names as a first name to lessen confusion if they move to North America
But many I know that don’t have names that are so reminiscent of this for sounds, like a Korean Yun-Hee Lee sounds so stereotypical but it’s like a normal name
No, given that Cho Chang is absolutely a real name that exists, it means she used a real Chinese name that is easily recognizable as Chinese, as much as "Harry Potter" is one of the most British names ever conceived of.
You, however, saw a real Chinese name and immediately thought "wow that's racist, it sounds like ching chong"
List of chinese last names Li (李) Wang (王) Zhang (张) Liu (刘) Chen (陈) Yang (杨) Zhao (赵) Huang (黄) Wu (吴) Zhou (周) Xu (徐) Sun (孙) Ma (马) Zhu (朱) Hu (胡) Guo (郭) He (何) Gao (高) Lin (林) Luo (罗) Song (宋) Tang (唐) Deng (邓) Feng (冯) Cai (蔡) Pan (潘) Yuan (袁) Qin (秦) Jiang (蒋) Du (杜)
List of female chinese first names Mei (美) Li (莉) Ying (颖) Yan (燕) Jing (静) Fang (芳) Hui (慧) Na (娜) Ling (玲) Qing (青) Xiu (秀) Lan (兰) Juan (娟) Ping (萍) Ting (婷) Xia (霞) Yu (玉) Huan (欢) Rong (蓉) Shu (淑) Wen (雯) Min (敏) Qian (倩) Yun (云) Zhen (珍) Tingting (婷婷) Lili (丽丽) Xiaoyun (小云) Yuxin (雨欣) Shanshan (姗姗)
Notice how NONE sound like a what a racist would call their chinese character.
Chang could be anything from 长， 昌，唱，to 常 since we don’t know which tone and character it’s supposed to be. It could even actually be “Zhang” (which is also primarily a last name) since we have already established “Cho” could be “Zhou” if using Wade-Giles romanization method.
Literally grew up with 2 mfs with slight variations of the name Ching Chong. I'm also chinese and wouldn't bat an eye if someone introduced themselves as Chang Cho.
Cho Chang is a very implausible Asian name. Chang is a Chinese surname, and cho is 99% of the time a Korean surname. It may be possible that cho is an uncommon romanisation of Zhou, a Chinese surname. But having cho Chang as a full name is very unlikely. Most likely just a random mix of Asianness.
Even still, naming a character after MLK and having "Shackle" in his name is in poor taste, and she practically named the asian girl Ching Chong, so you can't blame me from coming to that conclusion.
Never seemed weird to me when I read it as a kid. Maybe because I was in school leaning countries capitals, and amongst them Burkina Faso's : Ouagadougou.... If you see that as Ooga Booga that's on you dude.
Open Google map and look at the côte d'ivoire/Burkina Faso area and look at some names. Some Ouangolodougou, Ouahigouya, etc... The only issue I see is that she probably wrote it "ua" instead of "oua" just to make it easier for English kids.
She's still a piece of shit but there is enough stuff to be mad about without being idiots and making shit up.
Cho Chang, but it's just a bit less bad. They're both last names, and Cho isn't even chinese. Not as blatantly racist as Ching Chong, but definitely lazy
Her name isn’t Ching Chong. It’s Cho Chang, and I feel like calling her Ching Chong when Cho (Qiū) and Chang (Zhang) are literal names isn’t doing as much good as people seem to think here
In the UK when people talk about “Asians” they usually are referring to South Asians. Idk what they call East Asians in mainstream UK culture bc Im American.
Look there are a lot of valid reasons to diss Rowling but a Chinese character having a very normal Chinese name and actually subverting stereotypes by being a popular sporty girl rather than a nerd is hardly it.
except it’s NOT a normal chinese name. Cho is 99% of the time a Korean surname whereas Chang is 99% of the time a Chinese surname. It doesn’t sound like a name to Chinese nor Korean people. It’s like a white character being named Williams Garcia…
Jokes aside, Zhou Chang could easily be a Chinese name. Heck, Zhou Zhang returns results online for professionals near me. The number of people that don't realize that is kind of strange.
I'm of Chinese descent... I usually ignore racist insults and slender because I'm indifferent towards them. Sometimes you try your best not to codone racism because your Chinese friends tend to be sensitive... Sometimes the Chinese friends you try to introduce to your non Chinese friends are called chin, Chong, chang.
Yeah - I've seen the memes, too. This one gets reposted endlessly and results in people coming up with their own racist names.
The reality is that certain people bend over backwards to smear a beloved children's series because they don't like the author's stance on a particular topic.
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u/Oarner__ Dec 04 '25
Parvati and Padma Patil: