Name concepts translated to Hanzi

[revmatty]

I have three daughters, one adopted from Jiangxi province in 2006. I would like to get the meaning of their English names as tattoos and have worked out what I think to be fair approximations. Can anyone let me know if these make sense?

nature, all of creation (from C.S. Lewis) - 自然界

paradise/heaven (from Celtic mythology) - 天国

the god/dess of marriage - 月老

[leeyah]

No these make no sense at all. May I ask what their names are? Because English, Greek or Latin or whatever, I think you got the wrong words here:

自然界 is a scientific term for the world of nature

天国 would be a translation of Judeo-christian 'Paradise/Eden'

月老 makes no sense as a name at all, it means neither marriage nor god,much less goddess, 月老 is moon + old man >> and tells the story of an old man with a red thread in his hands which he uses to 'bind' men & women in marriage

Chinese equivalents of 1 and 2 would be:

天下万物 all things under the sky (the traditional Chinese word for 'nature')

天堂 traditionally the Heavenly Temple where 'immortals' live

But, since translating abstract ideas from one 'picturesque' language into another is a tricky business, I'm not sure really if any of these are appropriate as tattoos or as translations of your kids' names. Better not translate them at all, IMHO.

Edited July 24, 2009 at 06:36 PM by leeyah

[revmatty]

Thanks Leeyah, I'm very unsure of it myself. I don't like transliterations because the sound has no relation to the meaning and can often mean something you wouldn't want tattooed on you

Our kids have unusual names to begin with, which makes translating them more difficult than normal I suppose. I think I may go with the hanzi for something like "My girls are the center of my heart" instead with their birth dates.

[leeyah]

You got it For example, my name translated would have to have a 狮 in it, so I picked a Chinese name instead

But why are you so keen on a hanzi tattoo? Because it's difficult to convey what you have in mind using hanzi.

Also, I usually don't dare suggest tattoo ideas, but perhaps if you really want hanzi, then tattooing something like "three angels in my heart" plus their birth dates would be better for girls? Makes sense, even in Chinese:

我心中的三个天使

Only perhaps it's too many hanzi for a tattoo... :/

Edited July 24, 2009 at 07:34 PM by leeyah

[revmatty]

I've wanted to get a tattoo in honor of my daughters since the first one was born, and our journey to China in 2007 to adopt our middle daughter made me want to get it done in hanzi. I think you're right in that getting something that expresses what I want to say would be more meaningful than simply translations of their names and it would be something that would be easily understandable to a native speaker, which is also important to me.