Jensen Huang isn't his birth name: What Nvidia CEO was actually called before moving to US

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is recognised worldwide for his signature black leather jacket and his role in building one of the most influential companies in the technology industry. But the name he is known by today is not the name he was born with. His original name, Taiwanese roots and childhood journey to the United States reveal a lesser-known side of the billionaire technology executive.

What is Jensen Huang’s real name? Why does he have two names?

Huang's Chinese name is 黃仁勳 (Huang Renxun). Here, 黃 (Huang) is his family name, while 仁勳 (Renxun) is his given name. He is also known by the older Romanised spelling Jen-Hsun Huang. Jensen is the English name he adopted while growing up in the United States.

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The change was not limited to Huang. His older brother, whose original name was Jen-Chieh Huang, became known as Jeff, while his younger brother, Jen-Che, later adopted the name Jim. According to the biography The Thinking Machine, the brothers anglicised their names to fit in while studying in the US.

Huang was born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1963. His father was a chemical and instrumentation engineer, while his mother was a homemaker who made an effort to prepare her children for life in an English-speaking country. Although she did not speak English herself, she used a dictionary to pick 10 words at a time, writing their English and Chinese equivalents to teach her sons.

From Taiwan to Thailand and America - The family story

Huang’s family later moved to Thailand after his father was transferred to work at an oil refinery. In 1973, amid political unrest in Thailand, his father decided to send Jensen and his older brother Jeff to the United States. The boys initially stayed with an uncle in Tacoma, Washington, while their parents and younger brother remained behind.

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Their uncle subsequently arranged for them to attend Oneida Baptist Institute in Kentucky, believing it was a college-preparatory boarding school. However, the institution was actually a reform academy. Jensen, who was younger than his brother, lived at the institute but attended a nearby public elementary school because he was too young for its classes. His older brother worked on a tobacco farm, while Jensen was assigned to clean the dormitory bathrooms.

Their parents eventually moved to the US, and the family reunited in Oregon. Huang attended Aloha High School, graduating at 16, before studying electrical engineering at Oregon State University. He later earned a master’s degree from Stanford University.

In 1993, at the age of 30, Huang co-founded Nvidia with Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. What began as a company focused on graphics processing technology would eventually become one of the biggest players in the global artificial intelligence industry.