Malinda Lo: Hello, my name is Malinda Lo. This isn't the name I was born with, however, since I was born in China and originally had a Chinese name. As soon as I moved to the US though, I learned that most Americans couldn't pronounce my Chinese name very well, so when I was six years old, I chose a new first name, Malinda. The most distinctive thing about my first name is that it's spelled with an A, that's M-A-L-I-N-D-A, and my last name is extremely simple, L-O for Lo.