Chinese Name Decision

[Cactus543]

All right, so I have a couple different choices for a Chinese name

1: 明戴勇 (it's basically a transliteration of my first name)

2. 明奕城(continuing with the 明 trend, a friend recommended this name to me because he thought it was pretty unique)

Or if anyone has any good suggestions for a name ~

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[tianxin]

i think 明奕城 is better.

the 戴 is more like a family name in chinese.

[Hofmann]

Well 明 isn't a surname AFAIK.

[chrix]

My dictionary says otherwise. How frequent it is I cannot say.

Wikipedia also agrees:

Ming (明) is a common personal name among Chinese people, Vietnamese people, and Korean people. In pinyin, it is written Míng, in romanized Vietnamese, it is written as Minh, and in Korean it is pronounced Myeong. Directly translated as "enlightenment", the Chinese character is a conjunction of the words sun (日) and moon (月), representing light, and therefore enlightenment

[HashiriKata]

Well 明 isn't a surname AFAIK.

Ming (明) is a common personal name

"Surname" and "personal name" are two different things, aren't they?

[889]

Well, my dictionary shows 明 Ming as a surname, giving the rebel 明玉珍 Ming Yuzhen as an example.

[chrix]

Hehe, we must have the same dictionary

[Hofmann]

Well, my dictionary shows 明 Ming as a surname, giving the rebel 明玉珍 Ming Yuzhen as an example.

Anyone besides him? He changed it from 旻 to 明.

[imron]

At least a few others. Google tells me there are even more.

[kdavid]

Why not choose a name that is more likely to be a real name in China? I'm guessing the names you have already chosen aren't only because you said they are transliterations of your real name.

I say this because in my personal experienced I've found that I've been taken more seriously with my current name than with former names. When I first came to China I chose a name based on meaning rather than practicability. I was constantly hounded and interrogated by the Chinese about my choice. Now that I've got a rather plain name, I don't get second guessed that A) I'm pronouncing it incorrectly or B) that I don't understand the language.

Then again, if you're just studying at uni, I guess it wouldn't matter. However, if you're going to be in China and doing business, you may want to be more careful about choosing your name.

[trien27]

Well 明 isn't a surname AFAIK.

明 IS a surname AFAIK: It's in the Baijiaxing, or Hundred Family Surnames book: Baijiaxing was written in the Song/Sung dynasty. So, it's a surname since the Song dynasty: Northern Song = 960-1127, Southern Song = 1127-1279.

費廉岑薛 雷賀倪湯 滕殷羅畢 郝鄔安常

樂于時傅 皮卞齊康 伍余元卜 顧孟平黃

和穆蕭尹 姚邵湛汪 祁毛禹狄 米貝明臧

Source: http://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/baijiaxing.php

明 also a personal name for mostly males, but some females have them too, or they add a "grass" radical on top to make it "more feminine": 萌, but then it won' t be "ming" in Mandarin anymore, it'd be something like "meng".

Ming (明) is a common personal name among Chinese people, Vietnamese people, and Korean people. In pinyin, it is written Míng, in romanized Vietnamese, it is written as Minh, and in Korean it is pronounced Myeong. Directly translated as "enlightenment", the Chinese character is a conjunction of the words sun (日) and moon (月), representing light, and therefore enlightenment

Wikipedia obviously left out Japanese: Akira, as in KUROSAWA, Akira [黒沢 明]

Edited December 28, 2009 at 12:50 AM by trien27

[Hofmann]

Roger that.