Translate my chinese name?

[Treece]

I mean I suppose I could always go back and ask my teacher, but it's saturday now. And this is more fun. Lol

My teacher gave me the chinese name: gē shān

I've been trying to figure out what it means. I didn't not write down the chinese word because he was kind of hurrying... So if there's more than one definition you can let me know?

He said something about "shān" meaning a girls name...

And chinese-tools says it means " the relationship between siblings of different mothers" In which case... that's not much of a name is it? lol. Any help is welcome

[chrix]

it's impossible to tell the meaning without knowing the characters...

[CrisPal]

Maybe 葛姗(ge3shan1),or 戈姗（ge1shan1),the 姗 is realy common charactar in agirl`s name.

[renzhe]

If the first character is a surname and the tone is right, it should be 戈, and it is an ancient type of spear. But you shouldn't interpret too much meaning into surnames.

Shan is probably 姗, like ChrisPal says.

But it's impossible to know without seeing the characters. For all we know, it could be 鬲山 or something.

[jbradfor]

BTW, if you're wondering why people are so uncertain:

According to MDBG, there are 16 characters pronounced ge1: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=ge1 . And there are 20 with shan1: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=p%3Ashan1 . So while some of those we can probably guess is not your name (e.g. 羶, unless your teacher hates you), it's just guessing.

[trien27]

Maybe 葛姗(ge3shan1),or 戈姗（ge1shan1),the 姗 is realy common charactar in agirl`s name.

姗 is NOT a common female name, but 珊, shān

is. 珊 is from 珊瑚 shānhú meaning "coral(s)"

My teacher gave me the chinese name: gē shān

葛 or 戈 might be derived from your last name's first syllable [if when you're not Chinese]? Your teacher would have no reason to "give you a name" if you're already Chinese [both parents are Chinese] or have one parent who's Chinese.

I don't think that 姗 is uncommon, for example: 林姗

The link says "林姗" is her stage name. Which is not her real name. Therefore it's not reliable as a common name. 姗, with the meanings of "slander", "ridicule" & "go slowly" is not common for Chinese parents to name their child this. 姗 seems to be a phonetic alternate to "珊" and most of them are from China, also there's some links to Hong Kong & Taiwan.

Note: Some websites incorrectly used Hong Kong actress's name 李珊珊 and altered it to 李姗姗 !!!

Edited February 6, 2010 at 09:23 PM by trien27

[renzhe]

I don't think that 姗 is uncommon, for example: 林姗

But 珊 is also popular.

[doraemon]

姗 is NOT a common female name, but 珊, shān

is. 珊 is from 珊瑚 shānhú meaning "coral(s)"

I completely agree. I think this 珊 is the one girls are meant to have in their names. I mean, doesn't this 姗 only appear in the phrase "姗姗来迟" which has negative connotations? It bothers me when I see the first one being mistakenly typed as the second one.

[skylee]

I agree that 珊 is more popular in names. But then I remember I had a classmate whose name is 姗姗. Perhaps she was born postmature.