Name translation Please

[baihe shifu]

Can someone please translate the following into Chinese for me urgently:

'Simon Lailey"

[Guoke]

西门雷利

[baihe shifu]

Hey Thank you very much!

[renzhe]

I'm just wondering: do you tell your students that you're essentially writing gibberish on their certificates, or do you actually make them believe that these are really "Chinese translations"?

[imron]

Now, now renzhe, no need to be so cynical, I'm sure West Door Thunder Profit loves his new Chinese name.

[imluffy]

西蒙·雷利

[baihe shifu]

Renzhe:

Do I know you? Have I wronged you? Why are you so negative towards me?

Perhaps this may be a better translation???

西蒙賴莎文

[renzhe]

I don't have anything against you, but I do find it odd.

You are teaching a gongfu style from Fujian and like giving certificates in Chinese to your students so as to honour this heritage and tradition. That's cool and a nice touch.

But then you transliterate names seemingly without any regard for advice people give you, and seemingly without interest in how the language works.

The transliteration in post #2 is decent. But it does mean "West Door Thunder Profit" and it sounds roughly like "She-Man" in Mandarin, and "Sai-mng" in Fujianese. It is also in simplified characters. Gongfu schools often use traditional characters. It seems like none of this matters at all, and I find that strange.

[imron]

I think the thing is that you've asked the same thing in 2 other posts and in both of those posts people have given advice that you can't just translate names from English to Chinese, and often it makes no sense to do so. If I recall correctly, Renzhe was one of the people in the other posts who provided such advice, which you seem to either have not read, or ignored. When you are "translating" a name like this all you are doing is just piecing together random words that when put together sort of, almost, kind of sound a little bit like the English pronunciation of that person's name.

For example, let's pretend that Simon Lailey is from a country that doesn't speak English and you asked on English-Forums for his name to be translated into English, and so someone chooses 4 words: Sea, Mine, Lie, Lean, and puts them together and says here's his name in English: Sea Mine Lie Lean. Well, that's basically what you've just done in Chinese for this name and for the other names in your other posts (with about the same level of accuracy in pronunciation and meaning as the example I just gave in English).

Perhaps you think it makes sense to write random collections of words on the certificates of your students. Renzhe it seems disagrees, and so do I.

[Iriya]

I don't see what's the problem. All foreign names are transliterated like this in China, including politicians, musicians, writers, etc, etc. It's an acceptable practice.

[imron]

Acceptable doesn't mean best. Politicians, musicians, writers and so on don't really have any other choice, the media foists a transliteration upon them whether they like it or not for the convenience of the Chinese audience, and for the most part, they never know or care.

I'm not sure I've met any foreigner with a serious interest in Chinese language or culture that has accepted this sort of transliteration as a Chinese name though, with most putting some effort into getting something more Chinese-like, and something that has meaning to them.

We also have a slightly different situation here than what happens in the mass-media with politician/musician names, and personally, if it was me getting a certificate like this, and I was told that what was going on there was just a random collection of words with no meaning to me and that only sounded like my name after a bit of a stretch of the imagination, then to be honest I'd prefer to have it English, or at the very least would appreciate having that explained to me, and being given that option. However in 3 posts asking for these translations the OP has not really given any indication that he understands Chinese naming and what is actually going on when he is asking for "translations". That's fine, there's nothing that says he has to, but some people might see it as actually being a disservice to the students he is intending to help (@baihe_shifu, renzhe's actually looking out for you, you just don't see it).

To put it another way, let's say that for one (or more) of these students, their interest in this martial art sparks an interest in learning the Chinese language (not particularly uncommon, and in fact my path to learning Chinese began from my interest in martial arts). By the time this student has reached a point where they can read and understand everything else on the certificate, they will almost certainly be unhappy with using that transliteration as their Chinese name. That's the main problem I have. If this was just for something without any meaning for the people involved, then fine, who cares.

[baihe shifu]

No problems I see, recognise, understand and agree with your points. Thanks!

[rob07]

Actually, 西门雷利 is quite a plausible Chinese name. 西门 is a standard (if rare) 复姓 and you can find plenty of people who have 雷利 as a 名字 on google.

However, I think the standard translation of Lailey is "庆" .

[daofeishi]

However, I think the standard translation of Lailey is "庆"

I have also heard "子" as a possible alternative.