Time for a Chinese name.

[skillphiliac]

Jesus, two threads in one day. Oh well, here it goes.

I finally am somewhat required to pick a Chinese name myself. Forget about approximation to my western name, I am talking about originality (somewhat, hence me posting in this sub-forum).

So, I was going for this approach: Pick the combination of syllables I consider pleasant-sounding myself and then go for the individual characters.

Here is what I've come up with:

Gender: Male

What I consider appropriate: Jiang Minya

Characters I already had a look at for the name: 顜敏雅

Well. I would like you to have a look at this situation, and evaluate it in all honesty. Is this something Chinese parents would name their children like? Could it even remotely be considered a name? Are the characters completely out of question in this context? Does it even suit a male being (somehow I have got the impression it would not), is there something else wrong with it? Would people look at me as if I was out of this world, or as if my name was extraordinarily stupid/tacked on/unthinkable of?

Well, I don't know. Somehow I am fond of the pronounciation, I would really like to hear what you think. Since I am only doing this twice (the first and the last time), I really don't want to mess this up.

Please consider yourself thanked by me in advance.

Edit: Of course I am open to suggestions concerning my name. Feel free to contribute, I am thankful for the ever so tiny bit of useful information.

[Hofmann]

Is this something Chinese parents would name their children like?

No. 無人姓顜. Good luck finding someone who even recognizes 顜.

Does it even suit a male being

雅 looks kind of girly, but there are no rules.

What's your name? Someone might be able to translate it or get some ideas.

[trien27]

Since 顜, means "honest or upright"*, you might be able to use it as a name instead of a last name? 顜 is not in the 百家姓, baijiaxing, a classic, usually translated as "The Hundred Family Surnames" written in the Song / Sung dynasty to list the most common Chinese last name in that period. Since it's not a last name, people might tend to think or assume that 顜 as a surname, is the abbreviation of an original surname from certain minority groups in China who have their ancestral name simplified to fit the Chinese way of getting a surname, which isn't true, in your case.

For more last names, you could visit Chinese surnames

*Source: http://us.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?dss=1&wdqchi=%E9%A1%9C&wdqchim=3&wdrst=0

雅 might be used for a masculine name in ancient times, but nowadays, it's used mostly in "female names". There are exceptions: There are women with masculine names in Chinese, but that's only for a few people.

敏 might be in names of both genders, but mostly in "female names" nowadays.

Edited April 25, 2009 at 10:19 PM by trien27
additional information

[renzhe]

蔣 is a common surname.

[trien27]

蔣 is a common surname.

Yes, like Chiang Kai-shek, etc...

Only common Chinese surname with Jiang3 is 蒋 [simplified Chinese] or 蔣 [Traditional Chinese] which is Chiang3 in Wade-Giles romanization.

Edited April 25, 2009 at 10:38 PM by trien27

[skillphiliac]

Thank you for your reply. So.

I explicitly do not want a translation of my German name. I don't want to associate those two entities in any way. The thing I care about most is the sound of it, and of course the meaning of each character. I don't want to be called weird names for the rest of my life.

Now, I've once more gone beyond myself and came up with 皎敏善, Jiao Minshan. What would you say about it?

I like it because of its rhythm, also I think the characters could be known. Is there something wrong with it, or is there a reason for why I should change it (e.g. resemblance to "manslaughter")?

Thank you again!

Edit: Wooah. So many replies, one definitely couldn't ask for a better community. °_°

I am having a go at your responses, while letting you think about my new idea.

[trien27]

敏善 these two characters together will seem to be a female name. 善 is actually used as a female name in Chinese [several women in my family have this name].

[trien27]

皎, meaning "bright", again, is not a common Chinese surname, but might be acceptable for you to use because it's not too hard to write.

[skillphiliac]

So far I have 廖敏... I would somehow like to keep the "min", and the last syllable should have "-an" as a final. Some ideas?

[skylee]

敏雅 and 敏善 look nice. They are feminine but I know men with more feminine names that these two.

You could perhaps consider 耿 (Geng), which is a common enough surname.

[Wendy Doble]

skillphiliac, 我个人觉得 “顜敏雅” 或者 “敏善”，“廖敏” 都不是很适合作为男性的名字。因为，在我们中国人的名字里， “敏”（灵敏），“雅”（高雅），“善”（善良），都是比较女性化的字。至于 “顜 ”姓，我还真从来没见过（而且我还不会读这个字呢，够偏的了）。我觉得外国人起中国名字，最好不要用复杂的字（以免别人连读都读不出来，就会双方都有点尴尬了）。

因为你比较注重名字的音调，其次是每个字的含义。我觉得你可以给我们一些想法，你想你的名字能表达出什么，然后我们根据这个帮你出主意。譬如说，前香港总督--彭定康，他的中文名字想要表达的可能是： “定”--希望香港安定繁荣，“康”---希望香港健康发展（我自己猜的。：））。

另外，和敏 （min）同音的其它字其实还是蛮多的，譬如 （民，闵，冧。。。），可以考虑从一下。

[skillphiliac]

Wendy (and of course all the others having replied), thank you a lot for your effort.

Well, what would I want my name to imply? I have no definite idea, but here are some guidelines: Unusualness, diversity, capability... of course that may sound pretty clichée, but since it was you asking and not me working towards it I guess this should be fine. I really don't want anything abnormal. I don't want my name to have characters noone will ever recognize (I just didn't know about my first attempts), and, as you noticed, I am really paying attention to the sound. Well, what else is there to say?

I don't want my name to be extremely simple either, just because I am a foreigner. Unless I am (from the view of Chinese people) really expected to have a horribly "easy" name, I would like it to be the same as any other name in terms of possible difficulty. Especially since I don't have problems whatsoever writing and/or remembering the characters respectively.

There is one thing I'd really like to keep (if possible) in my first name though: It should start with the syllable "min" (or "ming", either way is fine), for particular reasons. The name as a whole should be attractive in itself as well, but then again this is probably up to me only, seeing as this is strongly influenced by personal preference.

Although I am aware of the choices to be made while picking a decent Chinese name, I wouldn't have expected it to be this deep (maybe it just is a bit too late for me at the moment ), all the while interesting.

I really appreciate your guidance and am looking forward to detailed information concerning this topic.

[Hofmann]

OK...so you care about the pronunciation. For your surname, I like skylee's suggestion 耿 better. Have you seen someone with 皎 as a surname? I haven't.

Edited April 26, 2009 at 01:09 AM by Hofmann
Dude...there's a problem. I'll check it out.

[skylee]

I think 敏 is a very good choice for both male and female names (there is an IT guy in my office with the name 黃敏 and it does not sound feminine at all). If "ming" is also ok, then you might wish to consider 明, which of course means bright and intellegence. It can be used in given names or as a surname (it is not an uncommon surname). There is (or was) a quite famous male singer whose name is 張明敏.

I think these are good (but if you don't like 耿 then they are no good) -

耿敏善

耿雅敏

耿敏

明敏 is also good if you don't mind that it looks like a given name and that it's a bit hard to pronounce.

[stevewagner]

I had the same problem like skillphiliac

i want a good chinese name, which sounds good, the characters look good and it should have a meaning which suits to me.

i think the best way is to talk to locals, so i asked me flatmates girlfriend to give me one. took us an hour and we came to

韩 逍遥 han xiaoyao

which means "free, unfettered". She said its a cool name for a guy. Im just not too sure if it sounds a bit strange that both characters of my first name end with ao ao.

what do you think about this name any suggestions?

[skillphiliac]

One more idea: 段敏僬 Duan Minjiao.

Your opinion?

[anonymoose]

韩 逍遥 han xiaoyao

A former female colleague of mine had this exact given name (逍遥) though her 姓 was different.

[skylee]

韩 逍遥 han xiaoyao

It's ok. Wish I had such a nice name. People of my parents' generation seemed to tend to give very plain names to their children. I do not disagree with them.

[skillphiliac]

So, what do you think of 段敏僬 Duan Minjiao?

[skillphiliac]

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

I was asking for guidance concerning my Chinese name a little while ago, I got some hints, but soon noone would (or could!) help me anymore. Well, turns out the thread (following the board's reconstruction) is somewhat buried in a not-too-appropriate sub-forum, so I got no choice left but reappealing to all of you and your capabilities.

The main issue can be read here:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/2-favourite-chinese-musician9136

The current situation would be as follows: I have no clue what I want to be called. I am pretty sure about the 敏 as the first syllable of my first name, but I am not too sure myself about the rest, neither phonetically nor character-wise.

Since it is my fight, and since I don't want to completely rely on you (really helpful) people, I am trying to come up with something I would approve of.

I feel "Jian Minliang" or "Jian Minluan", or something around those lines would sound pretty good to me. It is just that those examples fit my desires regarding meter.

Either way, I would appreciate further help from you as to how I should call myself, what characters would be appropriate/thinkable and what you would consider nice-sounding.

Thank you a lot!