As the relationships between South Korea and China, in particular, and between East Asia and the West, in a broader sense, change over time, power structures embedded in language are also changing. This article explores dynamics surrounding the question of who gets to decide issues of proper naming (or un.naming), pronunciation, and phono.semantic matching and approaches for orienting students to the ever.changing terrain of linguistic conventions when teaching language and other courses. After laying some historical and philosophical groundwork and illustrating the effects of fluid power relationships and socioeconomic conditions on linguistic conventions through two American examples, we cross the Pacific to explore linguistic and naming shifts taking place in Asia. Cases examined include the renaming of Seoul in Chinese in 2005 from Hancheng to Shou’er, as well as the shift in Korea from using Sino-Korean pronunciations for Chinese names to the hangeulization of the Chinese pronunciation.for instance, from Bukgyeong (Sino-Korean) to Be.yi.jing (hangeulization of Chinese) for China’s capital, Beijing, in contemporary Korean. The article also explores foreigners’ practice of adopting “native” names in East Asia and how that is changing as nations endeavor to reinforce their linguistic and cultural borders against ongoing effects of globalization.