Choosing your Chinese name

[ansileran]

Hi everyone !

I'm sorry if this has been asked before (I read the topics on names translation) but I wanted to ask those who have lived / currently live in China and did not have a Chinese name how they choose one. Did you prefer something that sounded like your real name , something that convey it's meaning or invent a Chinese name ? What made you choose one or the other solution ?

Thank you very much !

[SiMaKe]

FWIW：

As you are probably aware, there are several ways to create a name. Here's the process I landed up with (it was by no means "linear").

1。realize that no matter what name I chose, I would still be a westerner and everyone will know that (this comment made by a Chinese friend as I was debating what to use).

2. however, in my case, I wanted a real Chinese name.

3. but I wanted it to relate me somehow.

Fortunately, my given name transliterated into a real Chinese name so most people started from the beginning calling me by that name. However, I wanted 3 characters rather than 2. Again, fortunately, the first sound of my transliterated surname plus the first sound of my given name is also a real, and rather famous, Chinese surname name - SiMa (as in historian Sima Qian). Hence, the name Sima Ke. And to boot, the whole thing is a real Chinese name.

Your mileage may vary. :rolleyes:

[Melody Wang]

Hi, I'd like to share with you some real examples of my foreign collegues who have already determined their Chinese names.

It is interesting, acceptable and easily remembered that inventing your Chinese name by selecting part of pronunciation of your real name. What's else, it is also essential about the determination of the corresponding Chinese characters.

My foreign collegues like to invent their Chinese names directly inspired by their real first name.

For example, Antoine invents his Chinese name of An Tang(an tang, 安唐), which sounds similar of his French name. What's more, the corresponding Chinese character "安"(which can match other character such as "安静“, quite; "安心”, feel at ease) and "唐"(literally make one recall the prosperous Tang Dynasty of ancient China) make his name "安唐" with strongly traditional chinese characteristics.

Valeriya invents her Chinese name of Li Ya(li ya, 丽亚), which is selected by part of her Russian name pronunciation "Valeriya". "丽” literally means beautiful, "亚" can be considered as "Asia".

Another German guy just invent his Chinese name of A Fa(阿发), only because of the first letter "F" of his name. It is known that "发" is a pretty propitious character in China, which literally refers to "make a fortune".

Tips: It is highly recommended to fetch a Chinese-English dictionary when you want to perfectly invent your Chinese name. Or you can post your alternatives here for others' suggestions.

Cheers!

[jbradfor]

My suggestion is to pick your family names based on which common Chinese family name sounds most like your family name. There are lists of e.g. the top 100 Chinese family names. The given name is much harder, as you have much more flexibility, but I highly recommend getting help from native speakers to find one that "sounds natural".

[skylee]

The Chinese names of many senior British officials related to HK might be of some reference value to you. The pronunciations of such names are more or less related to that of the original English names, sometimes just the surname but sometimes also the given names, and they usually sound very Chinese and carry very good meanings. Examples -

Robin McLaren 麥若斌 （若斌 is superb for Robin)

Murray MacLehose 麥理浩

Chris Patten 彭定康

Edward Youde 尤德

David Wilson 衛奕信 (the early translation of the name was 魏德巍, but 德巍 despite its good meaning sounds like 德危)

[Chinadoog]

My girlfriend's name is 姜琴，and thus my Chinese name is 姜钢. haha

[ansileran]

Thank you so much for replying this fast !

I'm just looking for ideas about what I should do because I know my name is quite a mouthfull for Chinese... I intend to study in China and, even though I'm never gonna look Chinese, I wish to avoid having people looking at my name like "hey, is this a joke ?" before trying to read it. It happened to me before in Beijing and the worst part was that most of the time I didn't even recognise my own name, due to the pronouciation...

I just can't decide what would be best : trying to have something that sounds like my real name (at least a bit) or trying to "invent" a real Chinese name, based on meaning or whatever, since I'll have a hard time getting used to it anyway.

[Brian US]

When I first came to China I didn't have a name, so I just opened a book and used one that seemed easy to write. I picked Li Xue with the common surname and snow. I soon realized this was a girl's name and did not suite me well. I then went with Bu Lai En to go closer to my first name. This was mainly to make it easier to recognize someone calling out my name. Yet, once I get to know someone I hope they use my English name and I call them by their Chinese name, just seems more personal that way.

I still get stares when all my official documentation still says Li Xue where I'm clearly a guy.

[Jane_PA]

hehe ,this is funny... Jiang1 Gang1 is really difficult to pronounce...

Although Li Xue is very likely to be a girl's name, there is no strict rule that which are girl names and which are boy names in Chinese.

[Jane_PA]

It is true that many westerners' Chinese names sound non Chinese, although there is no strict rule for which characters can be used as names... Chinese name is one of the Chinese culture elements.

For example, names could tell parents' hometown, or our own hometown. Names could be from some famous classical poems. Names could be some generation symbols. Some names indicate the birthday, like Guoqing.

Also, first names could be just some combined words with the family name. For example, a Chinese boy called Chang Jiang because his family name is Chang.

Yes, many Chinese names have some gender indication, but usually not many names are 100 percent sure of the gender, unless some very special characters.

Also, some Chinese families have their family tree books. So the family tree book usually already determines the first character of the given name, and parents only need to choose the second character for the given name. BTW, usually Meng and Kong family names follow the same Family book across China. All my friends who are Meng family names, they know which generations they are, like Guang, Fan, or Qing generations, although they hardly could find any blood relation. But the family book is going to be loose, some my friends from Meng family stop to follow this name rules, althought their father generation still followed.

Yes, two character first names are more popular in recent years. First, it sounds more meaning, second it may avoid duplicated names because many Chinese share the same family names. Also, it is interesting to see usually my friends from Taiwan are 2-character first names, very are are one-character first names. But from mainland, that is not very significant.

There are some popular girl names and boy names. Do you want to choose a popular one or special one?

[Jane_PA]

For example, Antoine invents his Chinese name of An Tang(an tang, 安唐), which sounds similar of his French name. What's more, the corresponding Chinese character "安"(which can match other character such as "安静“, quite; "安心”, feel at ease) and "唐"(literally make one recall the prosperous Tang Dynasty of ancient China) make his name "安唐" with strongly traditional chinese characteristics.

Valeriya invents her Chinese name of Li Ya(li ya, 丽亚), which is selected by part of her Russian name pronunciation "Valeriya". "丽” literally means beautiful, "亚" can be considered as "Asia".

Another German guy just invent his Chinese name of A Fa(阿发), only because of the first letter "F" of his name. It is known that "发" is a pretty propitious character in China, which literally refers to "make a fortune".

Let me see how would I create a Chinese name for them... 安唐 doesn't look like a Chinese name in my eyes. Oh, yes, usually the 2 characters for Chinese names might be related or has some meaning. How about 安东(安抚东方)?爱棠（喜爱海棠）？

Valeriya 莉娅，薇莉，曼丽。

[Meng Lelan]

To answer the OP's question, in my situation my Chinese name has a mountain character in it 岚 and you see a 山 on top. So for the Chinese names of my children, I purposely chose names that had a 山 in it. So the oldest is 如山 the middle child is 高峰 and the youngest is 云嵩. If you look carefully you can see a 山 somewhere.

Long ago I had a Chinese friend whose father intentionally gave his three children names that repeated a radical three times, one was named 晶 the second was named 磊, can't remember what the third was named, but I guess you get the point, there is no single "right" way to give Chinese names. You don't necessarily have to select Chinese names according to the sound of your English name.

[sleepy eyes]

If I may, since we are on topic...

My name is Pedro and didn't care much for the common options: Pèidéluō, Bóduōlù, and Bǐdé for Peter.

If any of you guys has a suggestion, or several, I'd be thankful.

[Jane_PA]

To answer the OP's question, in my situation my Chinese name has a mountain character in it 岚 and you see a 山 on top. So for the Chinese names of my children, I purposely chose names that had a 山 in it. So the oldest is 如山 the middle child is 高峰 and the youngest is 云嵩. If you look carefully you can see a 山 somewhere.

Lelan, usually many Chinese parents may choose a common first character for all the children's given names to show they are from the same family. I share a common character with my brothers and many people call tell we are from the same family.

如山 and 云嵩 sound very Chinese given names. Since 高峰 is a famous soccer player's name, but his family name is 高。

Long ago I had a Chinese friend whose father intentionally gave his three children names that repeated a radical three times, one was named 晶 the second was named 磊, can't remember what the third was named, but I guess you get the point, there is no single "right" way to give Chinese names. You don't necessarily have to select Chinese names according to the sound of your English name.

hehe, true, I did see some Chinese names like them. I know some person also named as 鑫（xin1），淼（miao3），森(sen1)，焱(yan2).

[MGMT]

Since we're on the subject, anyone want to name me? Apparently I need a Chinese name to register at uni, and I don't want to risk them randomly giving me one that I'll end up hating. I used a few websites to test out names according to my english name/birthday/hometown, but nothing sounded right to me. I don't need anything with meaning, I'd just like a girl name that's easy to pronounce; I don't speak a word of Chinese for now so I don't want to mis-pronounce my name! Preferably something easy to write, for the same reasons, one that definitely sounds Chinese but isn't overly popular. My english name's root is flower, if that inspires any of you, but I'll do just as well without if it sounds nice.

[skylee]

Apparently I need a Chinese name to register at uni

Is this true? It appears a bit unreasonable IMO when some the the students "don't speak a word of Chinese" at the time of registration.

[MGMT]

Well, that's what's written in the Admission documents I received: to register I'll need to bring various documents and "prepare a Chinese name". And since I'll be studying a Master program in English and will only have a couple of "Intro to Chinese" language courses during the year, I doubt this cultural topic will be covered, so I suppose they figure giving us more time to choose it wouldn't change much.

[ansileran]

So, basically, I should probably invent something for my Chinese name. I'll try to come up with something the ask if it sounds Chinese or not !

[Jane_PA]

Since we're on the subject, anyone want to name me? Apparently I need a Chinese name to register at uni, and I don't want to risk them randomly giving me one that I'll end up hating. I used a few websites to test out names according to my english name/birthday/hometown, but nothing sounded right to me. I don't need anything with meaning, I'd just like a girl name that's easy to pronounce; I don't speak a word of Chinese for now so I don't want to mis-pronounce my name! Preferably something easy to write, for the same reasons, one that definitely sounds Chinese but isn't overly popular. My english name's root is flower, if that inspires any of you, but I'll do just as well without if it sounds nice.

Are you a girl? There are many Chinese characters relate to flower root for female names... You don't mind the pronounciation?

[MGMT]

Yeap, I am! I don't mind at all, as long as it's something that's easy to pronounce for a Westerner (I'm sure there are some Chinese sounds I'd be completely unable to say correctly).