tattoo

[floridabiged]

I would like to know the symbols for a tattoo of my wifes name LINDA AND WHAT THE MEANING IN CHINESE IS THANK YOU EDWARD

[renzhe]

They're not symbols, they are written characters of a language. You cannot write poetry or essays using symbols.

There are various ways to transcribe "Linda" by picking random characters that sound roughly similar. For example: 林娜 (lin na). The first character actually means "forest", the second one means "graceful". But since this is a transcribed name, most people wouldn't read anything into it, and accept it as a transliteration. Many native Chinese speakers might not even recognise which name you were trying to transcribe.

Tattooing someone's name "in Chinese" is dangerous, because you're tattooing some random stuff that might sound roughly similar to what the name actually sounds like. The name "Linda" actually has a Spanish meaning: "cute" or "sweet", the Chinese transliteration is just an approximation of the sound that neither sounds like the real name, nor carries the same meaning.

I'd suggest picking a beautiful font and simply tattooing "Linda" instead.

[imron]

Also, please have a read of this and this to familiarize yourself with the issues involved in converting non-Chinese names into Chinese characters.

[jfranco]

Also a Chinese character can mean different things in different contexts and a single character can often be ambiguous. I have seen women who have had the character 信, which can mean many things. It can mean simple an article of mail as in 寄信 (ji xin - send letter) or belief as in 信赖 (xin lai - trust/have faith in).