Chinese name for my daughter

[colcha]

Skylee - I probably didn't express myself as well as I could!

Assuming that her English name is, say, Sarah we would write it in the birth certificate as "Sarah De Mei CHANG"

Given that "Sarah" would be her primary name, this would be come first otherwise Westerners would simply end up calling her "De".

Imron - thanks for the list. I will look into it.

[imron]

Putting combinations of those together with 德 and filtering for ones that aren't English friendly (ie. containing x, zh, q etc) names that sound ok to me would be:

德芬 Defen (sounds like 得分)

德蓉 Derong (suggested previously by skylee, plus sounds like 得荣 - you could also use 德荣, but this is perhaps more suited to a male).

德彩 Decai (sounds like 得财 - maybe not so suited for a female name though)

[Lu]

I am not sure why you list the family name in the middle.

Tony Leung Chiu Wai does that too (to avoid confusion with the other Tony Leung). I always assumed because in the west it's Given name - Family name, in Chinese it's Family name - Given name, blend the two together and you get Western given name - Family name - Chinese given name.

we would write it in the birth certificate as "Sarah De Mei CHANG"

How exactly you write it is completely up to you, and many Chinese in many places write their names in many different ways, but according to pinyin rules 德美 becomes Demei (no space).

[skylee]

Tony Leung Chiu Wai does that too (to avoid confusion with the other Tony Leung). I always assumed because in the west it's Given name - Family name, in Chinese it's Family name - Given name, blend the two together and you get Western given name - Family name - Chinese given name.

I know that. I live in HK, the place where the actors are from. But I think people other than 夾心人 like us can present their names in a better way. The OP's daughter is Australian, she doesn't have to be like that.

otherwise Westerners would simply end up calling her "De".

This is the way I am called in every letter/e-mail Qantas send me : "Dear Ka".

[calibre2001]

Is the threadstarter considering the name in dialect pronounciation? I imagine that would greatly affect how it fits in with the English name.

[imron]

but according to pinyin rules 德美 becomes Demei (no space)

Given that the surname does not use standard pinyin romanisation I'm guessing this probably isn't going to be a huge concern, although personally I agree that not having the space makes it clear that she has one name Demei rather than two De Mei.

[stonelee]

Yes, because 德美 does sound like a boy's name.

i don't think so~ If there is 美 in a name,usually it's a girl's name

And what i consider is that 德 has a little approach a boy's name, so the third character should be more approach to be a girl's name.

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

and i agree to choose one from these words . In my opinion,i think 张德倩 张德芸 张德婷 张德娴 张德珍 ..... because 张德 pronounce as 长得,so the last character must consider this point. For example 张德妍,it's a good name when i saw it at the first time, but it will became 长得艳....

I also agree to choose 张德蓉. 张德美 is OK, but sounds like 长得美. In Chinese tradition, 这就有点太直白的感觉，夸自己长的漂亮？我觉得“德美”应该不是最佳选择。

（In Chinese tradition, I think it will be too straight to asy "I'm a beauty girl","德美"is not the best choice）

[miss_China_so_much]

To me, 德馨sounds similar to 得心, which is also a very good word (得心应手)

[skylee]

I think 德馨 (Dexin) is not bad at all. I find 馨 very feminine, frangrant and romantic. The only down side is the number of strokes. But it's not like the OP's daughter would be made to write her Chinese name 100 times as punishment (as what we were made to do when I was little).

And I also like 德卿 (Deqing). 卿 gives me the same feminine / romantic feel as 馨. And having a Q in the name is no worse than having an X.