Please Help! How to choose an English name for a Chinese girl?

[Lu]

As mentioned earlier, if you pick Hermione people will assume it's because of the Harry Potter books/movies. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's something to keep in mind. Hermia sounds like a name but personally I had never heard it before (I'm Dutch though and not that well-versed in Shakespeare). To me it sounds a little old-fashioned, but it's still fine.

But to be honest I agree with Renzhe, if I were you I'd pick something straightforward and recognisable, like Hannah.

[Shelley]

Unless you really want it to sound similar, maybe think about Crystal, it is used as a girls name.

 

But if you need the same sound then I have to go with Hannah as suggested by Renzhe. Much nicer in my opinion then Hermione (mainly because of the Harry Potter connection) and especially Hermia.

[tysond]

Sorry, my bad, I should have said Midsummer is *one of* the most popular plays.  

 

I certainly have seen it performed regularly in parks in summer time, whereas other works tend to take turns in the theaters, hence I think it's pretty popular.

But I guess when you add up all the high school performances, it's probably Romeo and Juliet that wins.

[Matty]

If I met someone named Hermione I'd be laughing inside, though you may never know it.

As soon as I saw Hermia I thought of Hernia, even before I even saw ChTTay's post.

Someone said Harley, I would have thought it was a boys name... oops!

I think Hermione and Hermia as as unusual as "Meow" - the sound a cat makes. If I was going for something that matches my name, wanted something unique/unusual, was a girl, didn't mind standing out, and liked cats (which I very much do), I might even consider choose that.

At least if someone laughs at that it's (a) your real name (b) not copied © everyone can pronounce it (d) kinda cute (e) can be played with. If someone harasses you about it - threaten to scratch them!

Ok, that's the end of my daily bad advice.

[Hermione Yu]

Hi Matty, my lecturer calling me Meow is because he can't pronounce my Chinese name 淼[ miǎo ] correctly, and this is just only one character in my name. Every time he says my name, my classmates laugh about it.

[Yadang]

While Hermione was made more popular by the Harry Potter books, both names are exceedingly rare in practice

 

 

I definitely agree with this. I have many friends in Taiwan who pick very rare English names (I am American, though, not Taiwanese), and I am always a bit surprised. I'd go with Hermione over Hermia also - Hermia also reminds me of hernia. However, I think Renzhe's suggestion of Hannah is better.

 

Just remember that you will be repeating your name thousands of times in your life. If you choose Hermione it is quite possible that every time you tell someone your name, they will ask say/ask you something like "oh, like Hermione from Harry Potter!?!". You should ask yourself if this is something you are willing to put up with for the rest of your life.

If you choose something rare like Hermia, not only might someone be thinking "Hernia" inside, but also, every time you tell someone your name, it is possible that they will have to double check, as they will not be used to hearing such a rare name. If you choose a rare name like that, you should also be expecting to put up with people double checking it, for the rest of your life.

 

I think Hannah is a good name. It's not rare, and it sounds a bit similar to your Chinese name. It's also kind of cool because it's a palindrome - it's spelled the same forwards as it is backwards. Kind of cool, I think.

Regardless of the name you choose, make sure you like the sound of it yourself, and also be willing to deal with any uncertainty that people have if you end up choosing a rare name (or one that is hard to pronounce).

[Matty]

Even Google refers to Harry Potter when you search for the definition of Hermione!

https://www.google.com/search?q=define:hermione

Chrome also thinks it's a spelling error and wants to change "Hermione" to "Thermionic".

I can also imagine people always not knowing how to spell or pronounce Hermione, I read the entire series and still don't know how to spell it, I was also shocked by the pronunciation when I watched the movies.

[LiMo]

It's a shame in a way that Hermione is rare enough that it's one use in popular culture will now forever besmirch it. Don't get me wrong, I love Harry Potter, but as someone mentioned above, people will always assume, especially if they know you chose the name yourself, that you took it from Harry Potter. It's not fair but I can say that even I would assume you did. Its such a nice name too. I'm going to recommend against it unless you can deal with the constant refrain, "are you a Harry Potter fan!?!?"

 

(However, I disagree about Hermione being hard to pronounce or spell, yes you may not be able to guess the correct pronunciation the first time you read it, but IMNHO by now enough people have read Harry Potter/seen the films to know how to spell and pronounce it.)

I'm not really in favour of Hermia. It's true again, unless your pronunciation is very clear and loud people will be calling you "hernia," not very nice.

I'm not such a fan of Hannah, no offence intended to anyone named Hannah etc., but I'm with Chinese people on the rare names versus common ones. Half the girls at my school were called Katie, it's nice to have a unique name. I have one, I would almost thank my parents if only it wasn't massively easy to make rude jokes with. 

I would probably go with advice often given to non-Chinese when picking a Chinese name, the chances of finding a good name that sounds similar to yours are pretty slim so just ask around for nice sounding names with nice meanings and pick one of those. 

 

I vote for Harmony if nothing else.

[Demonic_Duck]

I can also imagine people always not knowing how to spell or pronounce Hermione, I read the entire series and still don't know how to spell it...

This is testament to the huge difference between passive and active recall. According to this, "Hermione" is the 28th most common word in the seven books, recurring 4,966 times - so you've read it at least that many times, yet you never learnt how to spell it.

 

...I was also shocked by the pronunciation when I watched the movies.

...and this is testament to the fact that you can read a book (or seven) without ever knowing how to pronounce one of the most common words in it, frustrating as it may be (I still maintain it's more frustrating for Chinese though, as a good proportion of the time you don't even have a faint clue about how to pronounce it).

[Basil]

 

 

This is testament to the huge difference between passive and active recall. According to this, "Hermione" is the 28th most common word in the seven books, recurring 4,966 times - so you've read it at least that many times, yet you never learnt how to spell it.

 

Which explains why after reading a couple million characters, I still can't write for toffee.

[Demonic_Duck]

Which explains why after reading a couple million characters, I still can't write for toffee.

[Kamille]

I can also imagine people always not knowing how to spell or pronounce Hermione, I read the entire series and still don't know how to spell it...

 

You made me think of my grandmother. She reads a lot of books but probably too quickly and she ends up learning words the wrong way, and not only does she pronounce them wrong but she also writes them as she pronounces them. For example she might overlook the word "aberration" and be convinced it spells and reads "abertation".

Worse is that once she's learned a word the wrong way, there is absolutely no way to make her acknowledge/understand that she's wrong (well actually it's to say that I never tried to really go against her saying something like: "grandma, you know, you got it wrong all that time, this word is spelled that way"). But here we are, I never quite understood if she also heard people the wrong way (I know she doesn't really listen to people talking to her: she's not lacking concentration only when reading, but also when listening) or if she is just adamant that everyone around her has been wrong all that time. 

 

That was for the incredible case of my grandmother. Apart from that, I had a science teacher who read the name "Griffith" as if it was "Griftih". I think the root of the problem is the same: lack of concentration when reading the word for the first time.

 

As for me (and because of my grandmother   ), I always try to give a good glance to any new word I come across. (But I inherited the lack of concentration when listening, I'm trying to work on it).

 

Of course it's different when it comes to the pronunciation, as most of the time I have no one around to teach me the right pronunciation and don't really want to check a dictionary every time I come across a new word that I can't pronounce (I would do it with French as I rarely find myself unable to read a new French word, but not with English nor Chinese, or at least, not every time). It bothered me a lot to not being sure how to pronounce the name "Hermione" when I was reading the books, though, so I went to check the pronounciation quite quickly. That name came about much too often for me to just skip it every time. It would have bothered me too much.

[Basil]

Thanks, Mr. Duck. I needed that!

[geraldc]

At least you get to enjoy a Saints day with the name.

 

http://www.antiochian.org/node/16701

 

I think Hermione is a fine name. As long as you like it, it's fine. 

[skylee]

I agree with #34.

[krystelle]

Maybe choose other H names, such as Hannah or Hailey or Hope

[ChTTay]

Hermione is great. Good choice. Get out there and introduce yourself!!

[XuanWu]

em,   you should also be told by someone that Hermione is a Greek name...

 

In mythology she was the daughter of Helen of Troy

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermione_%28mythology%29

 

Its also a beautiful coastal city in Greece

[skylee]

Hi, OP. If you have not yet decided, you could also take this into account.

When I read the suggestion of "Harmony" as an option I hated it. The hatred was quite strong and I didn't know why. I have just spent some time thinking about this, and have figured it out. Because, as I assume that you are from China, it reminded me of the suppression of the freedom of speech and also other forms of freedom, all in the name of "harmony".

And then I remembered this from an HK TV drama aired a few years ago - "和諧不是一百個人講同一說話，和諧係一百個人有一百句不同的說話之餘，又互相尊重。" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6zbjavnNNk

Hermione is nice.

[Demonic_Duck]

Actually I personally didn't like the idea of "Harmony" either, but I don't think it was because of any thoughts about "river crabs", I just think it sounds kinda naff as a name.

 

Nice quote there, Skylee!