As someone who doesn't know China very well, how important is having an English name? Is it legally their name, or just like a nick-name? Is it use daily or not at all?
It generally has no legal status and is mostly used for interacting with English speakers; some more Westernized Chinese people who go back to China might choose to use their English names in daily life though.
Another place an English nickname crops up is in online identifiers like e-mail usernames, since for a long time Unicode support was lacking.
