what's in a name

watched an interview on msnbc about a waitperson suing the waldorf astoria and the hilton corp. over bias...he's of the islam faith and has the name muhammed...he was forced to wear a nametag with the name john on 9/12/2001 when waiting tables at the waldorf...he introduced himself as muhammed to his tables even though management didn't want the customers to know his name out of fear of fallout from the events of the day before...he was waiting a banquet and didn't have his nametag along with three other waiters...the banquet captain returned with nametags for all four...only his had the name edgar...this tale reminded me of my tour to china...we flew out of san francisco, landed in shanghai, and transferred to beijing, staying at the hilton...we came down for breakfast and i noticed our wait staff had names like melody, daniel...i later found out from our assistant tour guide that chinese decided on taking english sounding names as it would be easier for their non-chinese guests...i am familiar with asian names so i thought it peculiar...as part of our tour, we went to an herbal shop...i opted out of an "exam" and waited in the entry area...the assistant guide visited and asked me about some names he could use when he became a guide...he really liked the name tree...i agreed because i thought it was a fun name, making fun of the peculiar habit of giving people in the hospitality industry english names...i mentioned him that he may be a little short for the name because we had an nba star named tree rollins...he became more willing to take on the name tree when he found out that people had that name in the usa...chuckles all around...