Chinese name for my daughter

[colcha]

My wife and I are expecting a baby girl any day now and we need to settle on a name soon!

The generational name is 德 (de) meaning virtuous. This is already decided. All we need to do is to pick an individual name to go with the generational name. So far, we like the sound of 美 (mei) which means beautiful.

However, our Chinese skills are very limited! I would be interested in getting feedback on:

1. whether the combination of "de mei" works well together or if there are any negative aspects/connotations that we need to consider; and

2. any other suggestions for individual names that would go well with "de".

Thanks in advance for your comments!

[imron]

What Chinese surname will you be using?

[colcha]

The surname will be Chang (張).

[imron]

Also, I'm just wondering how you decided on the generational name. I'm not a native speaker, but in my (limited) experience, 德 seems to be far more commonly used in boy's names.

[colcha]

In short, I didn't have any say on the generational name. It had already been selected by others who are far older and wiser than I am!

[Outofin]

imron is right. 德 is more common for boys. Girls usually get Hui 惠. 美惠 is a good and very traditional name, but maybe too common. And "mei-hui" doesn't seem good in English spelling.

Hmm, searching for an ideal name is a hard work.

[imron]

Fair enough, however from my (also limited) understanding of generational names, it either wasn't given to females, or females used a different one from males.

[Outofin]

Sorry, I didn't pay attention to the original post (about 德 is already chosen). 德美 is a good name, which doesn't have any negative aspect. The only thing I can think of is that it slightly resembles the name of Germany and America 德国 美国.

德 used in a female name is a bit challenging. But trust me, I can "fix" it.

I would suggest 德馨. The two characters work together naturally. And this definitely is a female's name without confusion. It's not too fancy and not too common, with good cultural background. You can tell people the name comes from a famous classic writing

刘禹锡《陋室铭》：斯是陋室,惟吾德馨

[Yang Rui]

I like 德馨.

I don't think 德美 sounds that nice - somehow the d and m sound a bit hard, and it always seems better to end a name on a first or second tone character rather than a third or fourth (美 being third).

[imron]

I like 德馨.

It does however sound very similar to 德性

[heifeng]

Edit: First of all, Congrats!

Second, yeah, I thought that one sounded like 德性 too. Then i scrolled down and saw Imron's post! Other than it makes me think of 德性, it's not a baaad name per se...

Anyway, that female Mongolian singer I started the Chinese-song-of-the-day thread with is named;德德玛* http://www.dedema.com/

德德 could be an interesting name and hey, lookie here it can be pronounce short 'e' in chinese and long 'e' in English ala' dede or 'deedee'~ two pronuncations, one name!! oooooooh virtually butcher-proof

___

*disclaimer..I'm not really sure if one of these 德 is her surname or not though...I'll have to look this up more and report back...this didn't really help

Edited June 18, 2009 at 08:39 AM by heifeng

[imron]

I'm not really sure if one of these 德 is her surname or not though..

Good thing her surname's not 沃.

[skylee]

Instead of 德美, you could also consider 美德. 德蓉 (Derong) also sounds very nice. I also like 惠德 (Huide)、慧德 (Huide) 、維德 (Weide).

[HashiriKata]

it always seems better to end a name on a first or second tone character rather than a third or fourth

I'm not sure about this and it seems a bit over-generalised, because how the combination sounds depends also on the tone of the preceding character. I've seen some names with the combinations 2-3, 1-4 or 2-4, and they do sound nice.

Given the fact that the OP wants to include the character德 in the name for the baby, I think it'll be difficult to find a better-sounding name than what he's originally thought of: 張德美

PS: I've thought of 美德, but the danger is English speakers are likely to pronounce it as "maid", and we don't want this.

Edited June 18, 2009 at 03:45 PM by HashiriKata

[colcha]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I have done some further checking and the generational name in our family is the same for both boys and girls

We live in Australia so it is important that any name that we give her sounds good in both Chinese and English. Although, she is likely to use her English name in everyday usage, I don't want to restrict her choices by giving her a Chinese name that sounds a bit strange in English. Keep the suggestions coming!

[skylee]

I don't want to restrict her choices by giving her a Chinese name that sounds a bit strange in English.

She can have more than one name. It is very common in HK for people to have more than one name. My full name contains a chinese name and a western name and they are both official (on my birth cert and ID).

[colcha]

Skylee, our intent is to put something like the following on the birth certificate:

First Name: [insert English Name]

Family Name: Chang 張

Middle Name: De Mei 德美

Is that what you meant?

[skylee]

For exampler, if a girl's name is 李少媚, then on her birth cert and ID the English version could be - Lee Siu Mei Dorothy.

Family name - Lee (李)

Given names - Siu Mei Dorothy (少媚)

Our romanisation (in HK) is not based on Hanyu Pinyin so you might find the romanised version a bit strange.

In your daughter's case (assuming that the other name is Demi), the name could be like Chang Demei Demi, or Demi Demei Chang or Demei Demi Chang. Or you could just name her Demi Chang (張德美). I am not sure why you list the family name in the middle.

Edited June 20, 2009 at 12:29 AM by skylee

[imron]

Not sure of how much use it will be, but here is a list of commonly used characters in female names:

秀、娟、英、华、慧、巧、美、娜、静、淑、惠、珠、翠、雅、芝、玉、萍、红、娥、玲、芬、芳、燕、彩、春、菊、兰、凤、洁、梅、琳、素、云、莲、真、环、雪、荣、爱、妹、霞、香、月、莺、媛、艳、瑞、凡、佳、嘉、琼、勤、珍、贞、莉、桂、娣、叶、璧、璐、娅、琦、晶、妍、茜、秋、珊、莎、锦、黛、青、倩、婷、姣、婉、娴、瑾、颖、露、瑶、怡、婵、雁、蓓、纨、仪、荷、丹、蓉、眉、君、琴、蕊、薇、菁、梦、岚、苑、婕、馨、瑗、琰、韵、融、园、艺、咏、卿、聪、澜、纯、毓、悦、昭、冰、爽、琬、茗、羽、希、宁、欣、飘、育、滢、馥、筠、柔、竹、霭、凝、晓、欢、霄、枫、芸、菲、寒、伊、亚、宜、可、姬、舒、影、荔、枝、思、丽

Something like nciku will be useful in finding the meanings and pronunciations of characters that are less common.

[calibre2001]

There are usually experts/fortune tellers who help in choosing a suitable name. It has to be auspicious, so some considerations may include what animal and which part of the lunar calendar one is born in.

Some generation names are decided generations before. I know of someone whose given name ( and her siblings, cousins as well) was already set out by her great grandfather in a poem. It contained the names or rather the virtues to be used in the name.