By Dan Pak

Adopting a Western name has been in practice for a long time in Asia. For example, a child's baptismal name at church, especially in the Catholic Church, was usually in English.

In the business world, an Asian associate is often called by his English nickname. It probably has a lot to do with the difficulty of pronouncing Asian names by the Euro-Americans. After a while, an Asian man or woman feels perfectly at home with their second names. As a matter of fact, it could make them feel proud of becoming a world citizen through this newly gained identity with a name in a universal language.

But adopting a foreign name is not just an Asian practice. Many American missionaries in Korea adopted Korean names when they moved to the area. In 1949 when I went to Yonhee (currently Yonsei) University, I was taken aback to learn Dr. Horace Underwood, the renowned American missionary in Korea whose family founded the school long ago, was known by his Korean name, Dr. Won Han Kyong. The pre-med school building under construction at the time was named after him and called Han Kyong Kwan (hall).

The names of prominent leaders in the Western world were assigned proper Chinese characters to identity them in the Chinese language newspaper. Such an assignment is an artful work. Certain Chinese letters are carefully selected to approximate the sound of the Euro-American name.

Each Chinese letter carries a specific meaning and a foreign name can be translated into Chinese either favorably or contemptuously, depending on how you want it. For example, America's allies in Asia translated the American president's name in the most reverential manner, while reserving the most defamatory letters to the heads of Communist countries.

I once noticed ''Khrushchev" came out as the ''Black Devil" in the Taiwanese paper! In contrast, President Reagan was assigned the letters sounding similar to ''Reagan" but meaning ''Thunder Root." Mr. Reagan was indeed a thunderous leader with great communicative skills.

One of the most poignant cultural shocks confronting many Asian immigrants immediately after arriving in this country is the strange custom of calling someone by their first name. Thousands of years of Confucian customs established the most elaborate family hierarchy in Northeast Asian countries. But the average American probably does not understand how intricate the structure is.

In most Northeast Asian countries, especially in Korea, each family member is called by his or her proper position in the family tree instead of their personal name. For example, brothers usually call each other as ''elder brother" or ''younger brother," not by his name. Sisters call each other the same way. You would think that's just excessively ceremonial, stiff and formal, but how about a husband saying ''my woman at home," or ''children's mother" when speaking of his wife?

In America, your father's brother, sister and their spouses are all called uncle or aunt. This is not so in Korea. Each is assigned a specific family title that is distinctly different from one another. Also, paternal uncles and aunts are named differently from maternal uncles and aunts. Things can get quite complicated. What all this boils down to is this: you usually do not call anyone by his first name. Instead, you call them by their position in the family hierarchy. Outside of the family, you call people by their social position, such as President Park (of a business firm), Teacher Kim (last name), Church Elder Lee, etc. On this point, American culture was completely opposite to what I was used to.

My reason for adopting an American name was for convenience. I discovered that informality was a part of American culture. I learned it as I began working for an American business firm in 1973 when I arrived here as an immigrant. The man in charge was Paul or Bill, not section chief or division chief as they would have been addressed in Korea. I was told that informality did not mean disrespect and that the idea was to get the job done without getting bogged down in the swamp of formality.

After nearly four decades of practice in America, I am now used to being called by my American name and I feel comfortable with it when I am in the company of American friends. But when I am with Korean people, I return to my old ways and engage in the formalities that our old customs dictate.

I now live in two different worlds. Such is the fate of first generation immigrants.

The writer is a Korean War veteran who now lives in the U.S. state of Georgia. He can be reached at dc.p@mindspring.com.