Lost in translation

I had an interesting episode in one of my classes the other day. I was just reading out the daily attendance when all of a sudden everyone bursts out in uproarious laughter. The kid whose name I read quickly excuses himself and rushes off to the bathroom. The next day he comes up to me and asks me to call him Tony M instead of his full name. I was so confused! So last night I asked Anita and Li Lei what it could possibly mean. Poor kid - apparantly when you put his English first name and Chinese last name together, you get a swear word. Tony Ma means "go *bleep* your mother". I guess he didn't realize what would happen when you put the two together (in Chinese, the last name comes first).