chinese names

[trusmis]

Recently I needed to fill several forms in english for an university in Taiwan. One of the fields read: "chinese name".

I already have a chinese name that some friend give to me : 橋迪

But I don't know if I can use this name in official documents. It's something like baptise myself. Need I to ask to the embassy to give me a name or something like that?

[skylee]

Could you just leave it blank or write "Nil" or "NA", if you don't want to make it official?

[trusmis]

I do like that name. I want to know if I can baptise myself in chinese or I need to get my chinese name from an official source.

What do you do? (I guess most people in this forum has chinese name already)

[trusmis]

what do you do -> what did you do?

[冷清]

I think you can use 朱迪 instand of 橋迪

[盤古]

A friend of mine adopted a Chinese name and made it "official" when he applied for a working permit. Now his Chinese name is on all official documents. BTW, you can use just about any Chinese name as my friend's was 白龙 Bailong (white dragon)

[fenlan]

No, you don't need a name from an official source. If that is your Chinese name, it is your Chinese name, period.

[geraldc]

I think the Chinese name just applies to overseas Chinese etc.

[in_lab]

If you like your Chinese name, then feel free to use it. Eventually, when you get an ARC or other ID, it will become your official Chinese name. Having a Chinese name is a little strange, but I also feel strange introducing myself by my English name. (More than a few Chinese go by their English name, but I just can't make the Chinese to English switch as smoothly as they can.)

[madizi]

You just have to be careful when choosing your offical Chinese name, because you'll have to use it forever. I mean, you can change it anytime, of course, but doing that you can cause confusion among your friends and officials.

I've got my Chinese name 马笛子 from 1997 on (one teacher in Jinan gave me that name, she made it from my first name, Matic) and I'm completely satisfied with it although some people have funny thoughts about it.

Besides, choosing name is in Chinese culture more importaint matter than in West. It is your destiny (like old Romans said: "Nomen est omen").

[trusmis]

Then I think that I have to think it twice before selecting my chinese name.

I think that even when teorically chinese people can select any character for their children's names, they use some tipical ones (let's say the pool of character for names).

So if I choose some of that tipical characters, I'll appear to be chinese (at least before you see my face).

I think that it will be better choose characters outside that ones.

Then, there are 2 choices:

- Select characters based in the sound

- Select characters based in the meaning (but something like white dragon seems too much for me).

What did you choose ? Sound or meaning? I guess that choosing both is superb.

[madizi]

You're right, choosing both is the best. I am lucky, because my Chinese name is phoneticaly similar to my name (Matic) and it also has meaning (Horse Flute). Beside that, 马 is real Chinese surname. The only one thing from which every Chinese can see that I'm foreigner is my name: 笛子 (Flute).

But I think that you don't need to seach for every price a name which is phoneticaly suitable and has meaning. Many of my friends has Chinese surname (first character) and then phoneticaly transcribed their original first name (the other two characters). For example: 白林达 -- Bai is Chinese surname and 林达 is transcription of name Linda.

Hope this helps!

[Long Zhiren]

Unless your citizenship papers (eg social security, birth, marriage, etc) of your own country (whre you are a citizen) requires it, nobody's going to care if it's official or not. Let the genealogy sleuths take the anguish. Many Chinese names used to fit set genealogy tables. Now they are quite random. Foreigners' names won't cause more confusion than there already are. If your name does happen to coincide with an existing Chinese genealogy table, you might even get into trouble. You've hit the jackpot, you're on the CCP's no-fly list!

For that matter, what are the "official" Chinese names for Gregory Peck, Arnold Schwarzeneggar & George W Bush?

[trusmis]

Yes, that indeed helped

Thanks a lot.

I'll relax and simply look for something to find confortable with.

[trusmis]

find -> feel

Sorry, very late at night here ...

[Lu]

Yes you can baptise yourself, I did and it worked just fine.

Note that although on the mainland it's very common to have a one-character personal name, in Taiwan almost all people have a two-character personal name. Qiao Di would be an unusual name in Taiwan.