Chinese Name

[Alicia]

So for my Mandarin class I just started I’m supposed to choose a Chinese name for myself, or my teacher will end up choosing for me.

The best I’ve come up with so far is:

ài lǐ xiā

艾李煆

But I have the feeling since I picked it out there has to be something terribly wrong with it. Are the characters rare in a name, or together do they mean something undesirable? If I was to go overseas with this name would it end up humiliating me? Does is sound like a Chinese name at all? I tried to choose something that sounds like my English name, Alicia.

[Music&MeForever]

The correct form of Alicia in Chinese would be 艾丽西娅, nice characters too, 你会放心吧

Also 艾丽丝 stands for Alice

[xiaocai]

There is nothing terribly wrong as you might be worried about. And I also don't think that you'll be "humiliated" for have such a name after all. But to be honest, 李煆 just doesn't really look like a given name to me. So in an effort to sound more "native", you may consider 丽霞, which is an extremely common given name and also goes well with the surname 艾, if you want to be on the safe side. There are of course other better as well as more unique choices out there, but I just can't think of any at this moment.

Anyone would like to help?

[tiny_wang]

a hahahaha...=.=111

sorry,but the name "艾李煆" is really ...lovely...

i'm sure the word"煆"...many people in china don't know the word...

and uesally 李 is a frist name

and"艾丽霞" is very...local name

we usually call Alicia like"艾丽西娅" or "爱丽丝"

m...it's a beautiful name for a gril

[Alicia]

Thank you both. =)

[rezaf]

choose a native name. it's more fun and easier to use! preferably choose a two-character name.

[Lu]

Try 李霞 :-) Very native (I think...), sounds like your own name, and it's a nice name too.

艾丽霞 would also work well, I think. 艾李煆... not so well I think.

[xiaocai]

I think when she said Chinese name, she meant "Chinese name" rather than "phonetic translation of her English name in Chinese". Both 艾丽西娅 and 爱丽丝 are of course very beautiful names, but they are not Chinese names at all! So I just want to say, please read other people's requests carefully and answer with responsibility.

[Hofmann]

lol, why not go all the way and do something like 炎燬煆 or something.

[Alicia]

I guess 煆 was worse than I expected. 炎燬煆?

[L-F-J]

i'm with lu on this one.

how about a simple two character name, surname and given name: 李霞 Li Xia.

its very native chinese and is very pretty.

[Alicia]

I didn't know there was just two characters in some names, I thought it was always the two characters for the given name, and then one for the family name. How often is it just two characters in all?

[Hofmann]

Given name

Generation name

[Alicia]

But is it as common to have one character given-name? =| Maybe I missed that in those links.

I'm just wondering, because every name I've heard had two characters for the given-name, but I don't know if that's simply because of my limited exposure, or due to it being less common.

[xiaocai]

But is it as common to have one character given-name?

It is very common in mainland China.

[leeyah]

Both 李霞 & 丽霞 (Lixia) are very nice names for a girl, just look up the meaning of the characters. And no, you don't have to adopt a surname really.

For all who wish to learn more here's an interesting link to a list of common Chinese names with detailed explanation on how to think of names for Chinese babies i.e. 怎么取名字: http://ask.ci123.com/questions/show/333514

[Alicia]

Okay, thank you for your answer xiaocai, I was confused. haha The link to that site is very interesting leeyah, thank you. And thank you to everyone else who has answered.

[Lu]

Two-character names are quite common in mainland China, less common in Taiwan.

If you take a Chinese name, I'd recommend take a surname as well, when you're at it. With 李霞 you have a complete Chinese name, if you prefer 丽霞 you can add a family name, perhaps one that sounds a bit like your real family name.

[sethhsu]

the character 煆 is very rare and no Chinese knows how to say it.

My suggestion is, since your name is Alicia, you can use 愛麗/爱丽 （aili）as your first name and use another character which sounds like your family name as the family name of your Chinese name, but we need your family name first.

btw, 李 is one of the largest family names in China and it doesn't often appear in the middle of a name.

[liuzhou]

Here is an list of Chinese names of a group of students I taught some years ago.

As you will see, there are a number of two character names. 28% two character names. Quite common, really. It's the four character names that confuse me!

蔡欢

曹艳群

冯小平

甘婷婷

黄海婷

黄晓艳

赖秀兰

兰桂燕

兰佳蔚

蓝兰

黎珊

李焕玲

李金

李静月

李美

李伟琴

李雪

廖东红

刘丽丽

刘思妤

龙书文

马芬洲

蒙凤莲

宁长莹

欧娜

潘思遥

潘艳玲

彭静

彭美妮

秦小荣

容荣

苏玉玲

唐翠霞

唐赛君

王熙芳

王艳凤

王月杏

韦彩红

韦丽莉

魏雪

吴振玲

杨喆

曾丽婷

张连娇

张珍敏

周凤

My wife is a two character, too. But my girlfriend has three!