Translation please

[Snazzyviper]

Hi can anyone tell me if these names are correct please?

What do they read?

1-

2-

3-

4-

Thanks in advance for your help

[JimmySeal]

1. se4 ba1 si1 sen1

2. qiao2 shu1 ya4

3. rui4 shi4 bao3

4. rui4 zhi4 xian4

Sorry about the numbers. I don't yet know how to type accents on pinyin.

Please note that the last character in number 4 means "envy." There are no mistakes in the characters themselves, but 3 and 4 are unnecessarily fuzzy.

[HashiriKata]

Hi can anyone tell me if these names are correct please?

Strictly speaking, there are no such things as correct translations of Western names into Chinese (there are only approximate transcriptions; and as such, they are based primarily on familiarity and personal preference), so no one can really tell you if the names you've got are "correct" or not. One thing I can say is that from the sounds, 1 and 2 appear to be the familiar transcriptions for "Sebastian" and "Joshua", respectively.

In questions like this, if you include the original Western names these strings of characters are supposed to approximate, it would make it easier for those who want to help you.

[imron]

Sorry about the numbers. I don't yet know how to type accents on pinyin.

Try using pinyinput.

[Snazzyviper]

Thanks for the replies so far, the names are for a mate of mine, he has two sons called Sebastian and Joshua

[imron]

Regarding these chinese "names", you might also consider reading these two threads, to get an idea of why English names don't really have a Chinese translation.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12372-name-translation

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/10886-chinese-characters-for-names

[trien27]

#3 & #4 are fuzzy. But the first character of both are used as the first syllable of Sweden when translated into Chinese.

For #3, the closest translation would be Sasebo, Japan? But in Japanese kanji, the first character is different, and the last character would be the simplified Chinese form, not the Traditional Chinese form of the character.

I haven't a clue as to what #4 is.

[JimmySeal]

3 & 4 are probably supposed to be Western names too, but who knows what. I'm guessing they were generated with http://www.mandarintools.com/chinesename.html and 瑞 is some rendering of their surname.

I think Sasebo is 佐世保, not 宝.

[anywhere]

Mr.HashiriKata's reply is very constructive!

Generally speaking, the translation for Westerner's name is based on the original.

[AJBryant]

I think the OP -- like many others -- is conflating the concept of "translate" with "transliterate."

Many people ask for translations when, in fact, they want the pronunciation (reading) of something.

The translation of "吃飯" is "eat dinner" -- the transliteration (a.k.a. "reading") is /chi fan/.

Tony

[JimmySeal]

One has to wonder why you recussitated a 4-month-old thread to say this. I think OP was indeed asking for a translation, mistakenly believing that Western names can be translated into Chinese characters and back again.

[AJBryant]

Well, because I *thought* I'd clicked "new posts" and was cycling through recent ones. I didn't realize this was old. Sigh.