"norman" In Chinese - Translation Question

[AcuDoc]

My first name is Norman. Many years ago, when studying Chinese martial arts, my teacher told me that my Chinese name should be Nao4 Man4 闹曼. Clearly, that's just taking the sounds from my name and putting them into Chinese. Later a Chinese teacher in acupuncture school also suggested this for my name.

I've always wondered what this name means in Chinese. I've searched the 'net and a dictionary or two, but I can't discover what these words mean when taken together. Is this actually a phrase in Chinese, or just sounds that don't make sense?

Since Norman means "Man from the North," is there perhaps a better version of my name in Chinese?

This isn't for a tattoo, just for curiosity. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Hofmann]

Dictionary links: 鬧曼

The first word I thought of for "Norman" was 北佬.

[AcuDoc]

Thanks for the dictionary links. I had found those characters before, meaning something like "long argument." Not a very auspicious name (unless I'm reading the sense of it wrong). I was hoping, perhaps, that the characters, taken together, had a different, compound meaning.

I appreciate your suggestion of 北佬. That would translate as "Old North"?

[Shi Tong]

野蛮人 yě​mán​rén means "barbarian" in Chinese, and I dont know of a direct translation of "Norman" (as in- the men from the North), though I know they have names for the Norse Gods. The problem with these names, again, is that they're just "suitably similar sounding words" and dont really hold any meaning bar the fact that they sound the same: EX:

奥丁 Ào​dīng​ Odin (god in Norse mythology)

The only other thing I found when looking up the dictionary was this:

诺曼底人 nuò​màn​dǐ​rén​ Norman (people)

This is talking about Norman people, but IMO, it's talking about specifically people from Normandy (in France) and probably holds little connection with Normans.

You could as a joke call yourself 闹蛮人.. dont know if anyone would get it though ;)

Either way, hope this helps!

[skylee]

Is this actually a phrase in Chinese

No. I don't think 鬧 is used (much) in names as the meanings are not all that positive.

Perhaps you might consider 諾 滿 for Norman.

[AcuDoc]

No. I don't think 鬧 is used (much) in names as the meanings are not all that positive.

Perhaps you might consider 諾 滿 for Norman.

I like that suggestion. Searching for the characters together, though, I see both "Full of Promise" (or something to that effect), and "Snowman" for these characters. Either makes an interesting Chinese name that still sounds like Norman, but I'm curious which of these two definitions is more likely.

Oh, and thank you to everyone who replied so far. You've been very helpful, and I appreciate the effort to help me solve this question.

[CrisPal]

my suggestion is 北仁

[skylee]

I see both "Full of Promise" (or something to that effect), and "Snowman" for these characters. Either makes an interesting Chinese name that still sounds like Norman, but I'm curious which of these two definitions is more likely.

Where do you get the idea of "Snowman" from those two words? To me the words mean "full of promises".

北仁 is good. I like it, it's very Chinese. But its pronunciation is not close to Norman.

[AcuDoc]

The "snowman" from 諾滿 reference came from a few (probably poor) mechanical translations. I know, they are about worth what you pay for them. I probably shouldn't have mentioned them. "Full of promise" is what I get from a good Chinese dictionary.

On the other hand, while CrisPal's 北仁 doesn't sound as much like Norman, it gets the sense of the name. I like it. Thanks for the suggestion.

[AcuDoc]

Again I appreciate everyone's suggestions on the question. It was a more interesting discussion by far than I had thought it would be. This is a great forum and I look forward to other discussions here. Now I just have to keep from spending all my time reading this forum instead of working.

Though I have no immediate need for a Chinese version of my name, other than just for fun, I've settled on 北仁. The characters have a lovely simplicity to them, the meaning captures partly my name's meaning (man from the North), and partly my professional aspirations (humaneness/benevolence), and the "sounds-like" list for each character is pretty good. Thanks again, CrisPal!

[CrisPal]

客气，客气。

[AcuDoc]

Reawakening an old thread:

You can read above how I settled on the name 北仁 for myself.

I've run across something interesting with it. In pronunciation, I've been using Bei3 Ren2, but a Chinese professor of CS I ran across said that he would pronounce it Bei3 Jin4. Now I've looked into the 仁 a bit, and I see that it can be pronounced either way. When used in a name, is there a preferred one?

I promise: that's the last question on this name I'll ask. :unsure:

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

[Daan]

It's news to me that 仁 can also be pronounced as jìn. I can't find that pronunciation in any of my dictionaries, including the 汉语大字典, so I'd be curious to know where you found that.

[renzhe]

Same here. Even if such pronunciation exists, I'd assume that the vast majority of people would read it ren2.

[AcuDoc]

The ren2 pronunciation is what I was using. After the professor told me it should be jin4, I looked around a bit. It's not in any dictionary I have either, but it is here: Dictionary Link. I hope to run across the gentleman again to hear more about why he suggested jin. Perhaps it's an issue of regional pronunciation.

Anyway, thanks for the input, Daan and Renzhe.

[jbradfor]

jin4 is in neither MDBG nor TW MOE as well.

[AcuDoc]

Actually, at MDBG, the character 仁 shows a jan4 pronunciation in the Jyutping column. I'm not sure what that means, as opposed to the Mandarin pronunciation.

[jbradfor]

That is why we have google and wikipedia.

Jyutping is a method of romanization for Cantonese.

[AcuDoc]

I was just coming back to edit my post and say that I found it as a Cantonese system. So, perhaps the Jin4/Jan4 pronunciation is Cantonese after all, though I'm surprised that the professor didn't identify it as such.

[Glenn]

I don't know about it being Cantonese, just based on the fact that 北 is read bak1 in Cantonese, at least according to the Cantodict: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/67/