Which Hanzi to use for transcribing "Johann"?

[Ruben von Zwack]

大家好！

 

A Chinese Skypefriend asked me to give him a German name.

 

My first idea was Hans, as that is similar to his Chinese name (Han) and should be easy to pronounce. But then I realised that the second syllable, "si" is potentially a bad omen, right?

 

My next idea was Johann, as in a certain famous poet, and it has "Han" in there, and can be abbreviated to an English name ("John").

 

I have no experience in this, and it would be great if you could help me choosing good characters!

 

[roddy]

约翰 - if you ever need to find these, just look for a historical figure. I don't think there's much wrong with Hans though. 

[Lu]

Hans 汉斯 (I don't think this has any bad connotations, it just reads as a transcribed foreign name with that 斯. A classmate of mine named Hans had this as his Chinese name.)

Johann 约翰 (I assume, same as John or Johan)

If he wanted a Dutch name, he could just use Han (short for Johan again), not sure if that's also a German name?

 

But I'm a bit confused. Why do you need the Chinese transcription of a German name for a guy who already has a Chinese name?

[Ruben von Zwack]

Thanks roddy and Lu!

I was under the impression you had to avoid si, 四，。。。 死 under all circumstances. The elevator in my language school in Beijing didn't have a fourth floor. But so I guess I was wrong, even better!

 

 

Lu -   that's because he wants a German name! I guess Hans equals the Dutch Han. I just wanted to give a Chinese transcription too so he knew how to pronounce it, but then the whole (imaginary) "si" problem hit me.

[roddy]

It's not really a hard and fast rule. i suspect you'd find plenty of names with 思 in, for example. Stick it into the search engine here

http://www.chinavitae.com/search/main.php

and you'll find loads of old school cadre types with 思 and a couple with 四 in their names. None with 死 though...

 

Now, anyone got any good ideas for checking to see how often a character is used in given names? Author searches on douban and amazon.cn?

[Lu]

 

I guess Hans equals the Dutch Han

Nah, Hans probably equals the Dutch Hans. But nevermind, I hope your friend is happy with his name.

 

Used to people having English names as I am by now, I still find it funny when 地地道道 Chinese students tell me their Dutch name and it's something utterly Dutch, as Dutch as wooden shoes and liquorice, like Johan or Marieke. It gets even better when they come up with Dutch surnames. I knew a guy named 石 who translated that to Van der Steen ('of the stone') and another guy named 何 who transliterated that to Van der Heide ('of the heathland').