Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Why does Shang-Chi change his name to Shaun upon moving to America in the Ten Rings organization to live a normal life in San Francisco. As a teenager enrolled in high school, Shang-Chi changes his name to Shaun and quickly befriends Katy Chen, who he keeps his past and lethal fighting skills secret from. When Katy inevitably discovers the truth of Shang-Chi’s background and real name, she questions the practicality of using such a phonetically similar false name, but he may have chosen “Shaun” for more than just evading his father.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the second movie in the MCU’s Phase 4, and one of the film franchise’s most groundbreaking installments. In addition to its earnestness and humor, The movie celebrates Asian identity and culture, with Shang-Chi featuring an almost entirely Asian cast and filmmakers. Director and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton endeavored to tell an authentically Asian (and Asian-American) story, which he succeeding in doing both overtly and subtly. Shang-Chi’s assumed name is a disguise, but for more than just hiding from his villainous father.
After fending off an attack from some of his father’s deadliest Ten Rings assassins, “Shaun” and Katy head to Macau to protect Xialing from The Mandarin and his forces. While in transit, Shaun reveals his real name to Katy, prompting some seemingly deserved mockery. Phonetically, Shaun is not too far off from “Shang,” and Shang-Chi sheepishly its that he was only a teenager when he came up with the pseudonym. Considering The Mandarin’s worldwide resources and a veritable army of elite assassins, even a more effective name change likely wouldn’t have protected Shang-Chi from being discovered. For immigrants or their descendants, however, Shang-Chi’s new name served an additional purpose: Anglicization.
In America, racial and ethnic minorities often adopt nicknames or legally change their names entirely for a variety of reasons. In some cases, to assimilate into their new home, and in other cases, to avoid confusion, bullying, or even violent xenophobia. Shang-Chi’s new name didn’t ultimately protect him from racist bullies, as he reveals when reminiscing on his high school years. Two of Shang-Chi’s cast , Simu Liu and Michelle Yeoh, have both acknowledged the anglicization of Chinese names in interviews, and two of Marvel Comics’ most famous creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, were both ethnically Jewish people with anglicized names. Stan Lee was originally Stanley Leiber and Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg.
Though unintentional, Shang-Chi’s father, Xu Wenwu, was subjected to a form of anglicization as well. Wenwu its that he’s gone by many names in his prolonged lifespan, but he spent time singling out the name adopted by Aldrich Killian and his proxy, Trevor Slattery: The Mandarin. In addition to appropriating the imagery and history of his world-spanning criminal organization, Wenwu chided his most famous alias, referring to it as a “chicken dish” and mocking the United States for fearing “an orange.”
Upon hearing Shaun's real name, Katy, without any malice, tries to pronounce Shang-Chi, with some difficulty. This prompts Shang-Chi to assist her, showing how similar his real name is to “Shaun.” For many Americans, this is an all-too-familiar scenario and part of why many change their names in the first place. The actors and filmmakers of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings strived to tell an authentically Asian-American story as well as an epic superhero film, and Shang-Chi’s assumed name of Shaun was one of many details that made this endeavor successful.
