Junzi Posted July 20, 2015 at 01:44 PM Author Report Posted July 20, 2015 at 01:44 PM It would also help to know your wife's maiden name, which I assume you will use for the Chinese surname. It's actually Lee (李), which is why I got quite excited when Lily came up. It seemed like an immeditate fit and I felt like I did't see the forest because of all the trees. Quote
Angelina Posted July 20, 2015 at 01:55 PM Report Posted July 20, 2015 at 01:55 PM It would also help to ask her how do people in her family choose names for their children? My guess is that they have had the tradition for centuries. Why not respect it? Quote
Demonic_Duck Posted July 20, 2015 at 03:48 PM Report Posted July 20, 2015 at 03:48 PM 李丽丽 or 李丽莉 would both be Lǐ Lìlì, sounds a bit ridiculous. I guess something like 李黎 (Lǐ Lí) might work, though. 2 Quote
Junzi Posted July 20, 2015 at 06:36 PM Author Report Posted July 20, 2015 at 06:36 PM Hmmm...I didn't include the character 李 in the name because I thought family name and given name should be separated. But yeah, maybe it makes more sense to just consider the whole 2- or 3-character combination as one name. So, in this case, to focus on names that can start with 李 e.g. Lily, Lilian, Lisa, Lina, ... Quote
Hofmann Posted July 20, 2015 at 07:03 PM Report Posted July 20, 2015 at 07:03 PM That wasn't Duck's point. Li Lili sounds comical. You have to consider if a given name sounds ridiculous with the surname. (It might be good to look at this if you haven't) 1 Quote
Junzi Posted July 20, 2015 at 07:14 PM Author Report Posted July 20, 2015 at 07:14 PM Thanks, I got that and I agree - Li Lili does sound silly. Also thanks for the Wikipedia link. I've been reading that one before but I'll give it another read to get a better understanding, now that I got some new insights here. Quote
Angelina Posted July 20, 2015 at 07:36 PM Report Posted July 20, 2015 at 07:36 PM Is your wife from China or is she of Chinese heritage only? If she has spend a lot of time in China and knows a lot about the culture, it's better to ask her. 李 is one of the most difficult family names when it comes to pairing it up with a good given name. It's too common. It is even listed among the most 难取名的 family names. (I feel sorry for all the people surnamed 尿.) http://www.gezila.com/news/24244.html Quote
Junzi Posted July 21, 2015 at 09:47 AM Author Report Posted July 21, 2015 at 09:47 AM My wife is of Chinese origin only, third generation Malaysian Chinese to be precise, but she still has contact to some family in mainland China. While English is definitely her first language, she's pretty fluent in Mandarin as far as I can tell, but as she did not go to a Chinese school she is rather limited in written Chinese, which is also a reason why I’m turning to this board for your insights here. As for her “naming story”, her name was suggested by a relative when her mom was pregnant. Her parents liked it and took it, that’s basically it – no legendary family tradition like picking from a poem or something of that sort. The only mystical thing about it would be that they had the name double-checked by a feng shui master. Well, but I guess you'd probably have to take that with a grain of salt, because as with many of these feng shui consultations it’s kind of a rigged affair anyway – I learned that when our wedding date conveniently fell on some Malaysian holidays when it was perfect for her family to travel and a nightmare for mine. Well, never trust a vote you have not rigged yourself, hehe! Anyway, I checked with my wife now and she quite likes Lily as 李莉 – “plum tree and jasmine”. We concluded it would be like giving the child a nice bouquet of flowers with lilies, plum blossom and jasmine. What do you all think? Would that be a good choice for a girl name? Quote
somethingfunny Posted July 21, 2015 at 12:15 PM Report Posted July 21, 2015 at 12:15 PM I honestly do appreciate the lengths your going to in order to do this properly. My best advice would be to find a Chinese person you know and trust and have a long conversation with them about it. I don't wish to knock the people here at chinese-forums.com - they are incredibly helpful and knowledgeable - but the majority of us are non-native speakers who you don't really know. Personally, there is noway that I would entrust the English language naming of my child to a Chinese person, given the number of English teachers who have lived and studied abroad for years but can't spot an Ethel, Dumbledore or Caesar (or worse... a 7-up or Wolverine... etc...). Again, not to insult anyone, but the subtleties of names can be lost on all but native speakers. Just like if I was going to get a tattoo, I'd want a native speaker who I know and trust to look me in the eye and tell me it's going to be okay. Quote
Junzi Posted July 21, 2015 at 01:15 PM Author Report Posted July 21, 2015 at 01:15 PM Well, so far I felt this was a really worthwhile talk on this topic. Chinese names are a science in itself, so it takes of course a lot of expertise to master them. So I didn't come on here to get some ultimate pearls of naming wisdom, but to gather some thoughts, pointers and insights that bring me a step further. I feel it's been going well so far, and hope it's also an interesting topic for the forum crowd here. Edit\ It's also a matter of preparation. I went through a ton of characters and names which I thought could match and then selected those that I felt were the cream of the crop - only to get most of them bounced back as "tasteless", "contrived", "superficial" etc. "throwaway names". I'm seriously glad I got that ice block shower here and not in front of my parents in law! Now, when we eventually present a handful of names to a knowledgeable native speaker, chances are at least higher that we can start off on the right foot with some names that are more suitable. Quote
somethingfunny Posted July 21, 2015 at 01:41 PM Report Posted July 21, 2015 at 01:41 PM Yeah, thats what I meant really. It certainly was interesting having this topic discussed here, but always get it signed off by a native-speaker. Quote
imron Posted July 21, 2015 at 10:11 PM Report Posted July 21, 2015 at 10:11 PM Quite a few native speakers have participated in this thread so far. 1 Quote
Angelina Posted July 22, 2015 at 01:26 AM Report Posted July 22, 2015 at 01:26 AM My wife is of Chinese origin only, third generation Malaysian Chinese to be precise, but she still has contact to some family in mainland China. While English is definitely her first language, she's pretty fluent in Mandarin as far as I can tell, but as she did not go to a Chinese school she is rather limited in written Chinese, which is also a reason why I’m turning to this board for your insights here. As for her “naming story”, her name was suggested by a relative when her mom was pregnant. Her parents liked it and took it, that’s basically it – no legendary family tradition like picking from a poem or something of that sort. The only mystical thing about it would be that they had the name double-checked by a feng shui master. Well, but I guess you'd probably have to take that with a grain of salt, because as with many of these feng shui consultations it’s kind of a rigged affair anyway – I learned that when our wedding date conveniently fell on some Malaysian holidays when it was perfect for her family to travel and a nightmare for mine. Well, never trust a vote you have not rigged yourself, hehe! It makes sense now. Good luck! My advice is to find a name you like and then double check by a cultural master. Joking. Just make sure the name does not sound weird in other parts of the world. feng shui consultations it’s kind of a rigged affair anyway – I learned that when our wedding date conveniently fell on some Malaysian holidays Quote
Junzi Posted July 27, 2015 at 05:42 AM Author Report Posted July 27, 2015 at 05:42 AM It might be good to look at this if you haven't So I finally found time to read through this again. Some things in that Wikipedia article make more sense to me by now, but others also raise new questions. In any case, it was an interesting read, and as it's in the "Wikiverse", I enjoyed surfing through the related articles as well. On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_given_name I was happy to find 李丽 (Lily) and 李娜 (Lina) in the Top 50 of given names in China. As of 2007, 李丽 was the 44th most common Chinese name with 162497 name bearers, and 李娜 was even 7th most common with 244223 name bearers! So many people can't be wrong, so those must be good names! Also, I was keying in some of the other names into search engines and found 祐莉 (Julie) and 美丽 (Melly) give quite a lot of results in the image searches of Google and Baidu, showing lots of pictures of smiling Chinese ladies. So I guess these should be legit too. Quote
DernierVirage Posted July 27, 2015 at 06:06 AM Report Posted July 27, 2015 at 06:06 AM @Junzi: that's interesting, I didn't know that 李 could be used as a given name. Quote
Lu Posted July 27, 2015 at 06:22 AM Report Posted July 27, 2015 at 06:22 AM 李丽 and 李娜 are not given names, they are full names (surname-given name). These are women with the surname 李, which is a very common surname. 1 Quote
DernierVirage Posted July 27, 2015 at 06:30 AM Report Posted July 27, 2015 at 06:30 AM @Lu: I was reassured to read your reply ! Quote
imron Posted July 27, 2015 at 07:35 AM Report Posted July 27, 2015 at 07:35 AM 李娜 is a famous tennis player. Quote
Demonic_Duck Posted July 27, 2015 at 12:14 PM Report Posted July 27, 2015 at 12:14 PM Also, I was keying in some of the other names into search engines and found 祐莉 (Julie) and 美丽 (Melly) give quite a lot of results in the image searches of Google and Baidu, showing lots of pictures of smiling Chinese ladies. So I guess these should be legit too. Don't call your daughter 美丽, it'd be like calling your daughter "Beauty" in English, i.e. crass. The reason you're seeing lots of smiling Chinese ladies for this is because a) the captions for the pictures have the word “美丽” in them, and b) some of them are models (of varying levels of seediness) who use it as their stage names. Honestly, I'd avoid calling your daughter (or son for that matter) anything to do with physical appearance, because it's basically equivalent to saying "your value is in your looks". That's bad enough even if she really does grow up to be a stunner, but even worse if she doesn't. Actually, in that sense, “美丽” isn't the worst, because it's more like beauty in the abstract sense. It still doesn't make a good name, though. 2 Quote
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