Help with tattoo

[kevins1]

Hello. I have a friend with a tattoo and she doesn't know what it means. If anyone can translate it I would appreciate it.

 

I'm having trouble posting the picture, but I can provide a link to photobucket.

 

http://s72.photobucket.com/user/Rahzahm/media/characters.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

 

Thanks,

Kevin

 

 

[Lu]

It says 雷夫 léifū. You could read it to mean something like 'thunder man', but that makes it sound a lot cooler in English than it does in Chinese. In fact this character combination doesn't have any meaning that I or my dictionaries know of, it's used as a transliteration for (parts of) names that sound like 'leif' or 'rave' or similar sounds. The calligraphy is not great, but could be worse, and it looks like the characters are written correctly.

[kevins1]

Thanks for translating Lu.

 

I will tell her it means woman of thunder.

[imron]

The Chinese definitely means man, not woman.

[skylee]

It could be a transliteration of the name Ralph.

[kevins1]

What about as a pronoun?

 

From Wiktionary: (Classical) he, she, they, those, this, that.

 

She of the thunder?

[Lu]

No, sorry. 夫 means man and is used in words like 'husband' and 'macho man'. 雷 means 'thunder', but here both characters are just used for their, 'leifu'. The word 雷夫 doesn't have any meaning, it's most likely a transliteration. Does your friend's name sound like ralph/rave/leif, or her (ex-)boyfriend's name perhaps?

[roddy]

It's not impossible that the 夫 was meant to be a 天, perhaps? Not sure that helps any though. 

[lingo-ling]

When I saw it, I immediately thought "Leif".

[kevins1]

Her name is Lara. Not sure about any ex-boyfriends but she does have an ex-girlfriend who is Asian. That wouldn't be my first guess since she doesn't know what it means.