Emily X.R. Pan: Hi, my name is Emily X. R. Pan, and the X. R., everybody always wants to know, comes from my Chinese name. So I was born in the U. S., in the Midwest, and my parents gave me the American name of Emily, for my birth certificate, but they also wanted to keep me connected to my heritage. So they gave me the Chinese name Xiang Ru, which when you pair that with my last name, my full name is Pan Xiang Ru.

And the funny thing about this is that my mom spent forever trying to figure out what names she was going to give me. And my mom is really superstitious, so she just kept brainstorming, and trying to figure out the most auspicious name she can possibly give me, and something about all the strokes in the characters that assemble my name. There are a lot of strokes in my last name, and she assembled it perfectly so that they added up to the most auspicious design, and number, and was like, here you go. This is your name.