What is your Chinese name?

[Guest]

My name is 韋小馬. My TA, from 北京, who is also surnamed 韋 gave it to me. It's the only Chinese name I've had, but to be honest I'm thinking about switching it. I live in Taiwan, and while lots of people like it, lots of people laugh at it, too. Everyone seems to think it's a nick name since it has a 小 in it. Also, it reminds people of a similar sounding name from a character in a famous story.

What do you guys think? Is it too weird to keep using as a real name?

[Quest]

yes it is odd, just because 韦小宝 has 7 wives.

[Guest Yau]

Some westerners love to show me their chinese names, and proud of having an illusion of getting involved in the chinese culture. In my experience, I think the most frustrating names are what you can pay 1 bucks to have one in Chinatowns.

Mary is 瑪麗 / John is 約翰 / Peter is 彼得 / Susan is 素姍/ David is 大衛, all these transliterated names are meaningless and cliche, but it's cheap to pick up. Don't know why they can still survive.

Among all chineses posted here, i think 芳芳 is surprisingly a good one. It's like a model's name which is effeminate, stylish and modern and a bit sexy.

Some other good names I've seen:

Jonathan Spence: 史景遷, the famous british (and now American) sinologist. His name is taken from a chinese idiom "Events were passed and scenes were changed" which expresses a sigh to the time passed by. The name perfectly fits his profession.

Philip : 復禮, meaning the renaissance of confucius courtesy. A name was also adopted by a sinologist.

[Guest Yau]

Hmmm.....And never use the name "Doreen". Whenever a girl says her name is Doreen in HK, we will watch her chest to see if gravity has affected the boos.

LOL!! It's definitely the most embarassing name in cantonese society.

Also if we have any ABC here and his family name is 周(Chau), then he should avoid using the name Ben too.

[Bamboo Grove]

Mine is Hu Bo Li (Wu Pak Lap in cantonese.) As I don't have chinese characters on this comp, can't write it in Chinese. Hu is same as Hu Yao Bang's Hu, Bo is one kind of a tree and Li is to stand. It was given by my Chinese teacher in the late 80's. It comes from my surname "Hupli"

[Quest]

胡柏立

[yonglan]

I find the naming system of people in the past very confusing. Take Dr Sun for example, his family name was Sun (孫), his given name was Wen (文), his zi (字) was Deming (德明), his hao (號) was rixin (日新) later changed to Yat-sen (逸仙), his assumed name in Japan was Nakayama Shou (中山樵), thus the name Zhongshan (中山). Now all these "zi", 'hao", etc are very confusing. I GUESS "zi" is the name one uses when he starts to go to school, and "hao" is the name one chooses for himself when he grows up. Does anyone know what they really mean?

字 was typically a nickname given by an older family member or friend (or teacher) which generally reflected something about one's personality.

號 was usually self-chosen around the time one became an adult.

The case of Dr. Sun Yat-sen is a little more confusing because he lived in Japan -- and people mistook his name upon his return, hence 孫中山 -- and because he was a revolutionary and so ended up with lots of aliases as he traveled around China. So I've been told.

Probably almost no one today has a 字 and few have a 號 (maybe only calligraphers and Chinese painters, and they also have a studio name). But they're great fun to choose!

[Jamie]

I'm not really interested in creating a Chinese name for myself. I think it would be pretty presumptuous of me considering I've been studying Chinese for less than a year. But I would like to know if there is a phonetic equivalent for my name, Jamie. It's more commonly a male name outside of the US, but in my case it is female.

[skylee]

The first syllable of Jamie is similar to "jing". These words are suitable for a female name - 精, 晶, 菁, 靜, 靖, 淨.

The second syllable is similar to "mi" or "mei". Possible words - 彌, 謐, 宓, 蜜, 梅, 玫, 眉, 湄, 美, 媚.

If you are a quiet person, perhaps you could consider 靜宓 (jing4 mi4) or 靖宓 (jing4 mi4).

[geek_frappa]

my name is 叉燒飽

[Bamboo Grove]

胡 柏 立

Thanks, Quest, that's it.

[Lu]

My teacher first gave me the name 司马露, matching my real name, my surname being very long and starting with an S, and the Lu being in my given name.

But I didn't like the Sima, it was too long, and way too old-fashioned. I've never heard of anyone living today who has that surname.

At that time I was reading a book in which there was a girl surnamed Shi. I liked that one better, so I went to another teacher and asked her if I could have Shi as a surname. She told me there were two Shis, 施 and 史 (actually there's also 石, but my teacher didn't mention that one at the time), and that 施 would go better with my mingzi, as 3rd tone-4th tone doesn't sound nice. So I am 施露.

Many people have said it's hao ting, one guy said it sounded like the name of a perfume (I spell it as 西施的施，露水的露, I guess that's why he thought that), and once my name was thought to be a Chinese's name, so I guess it's a good name.

I noticed that most Taiwanese don't have this kind of name, though. Almost all the women I meet have 惠 or 慧 in their name, names are always 2 characters, not one, and more sophisticated, not just about beauty or something like that, but about wisdom or wealth or with very rare characters in it.

[Quest]

施露(Cell) is a bad guy's name in a popular Japanese manga.

[Lu]

Really? I never realized it could be a Japanese, or a male, name. What's the title of the book/movie/... he's in?

[Guest Yau]

haha! Quest already told what i wanted to say after reading Lu's post.

斯路 (the homophony of 施露) is the big devil l in Dragon Ball Z, the extremely popular japanese animation in Asia. The monster was synthesized in a lab and threatened every life in the world....and universe.

In fact, 施露 itselt also looks like the brand name of Shampoo. Hmm... Lu, you better take it as a nickname otherwise it'll be too funny to see this name on passport or official documents.

See here:

[Lu]

Si Lu is close to being a homophony of Shi Lu, but it's not quite the same.

I've used this name for over two years now, on official documents and all, with significantly more people saying it was an ok name than people saying it sounds like perfume or shampoo, so I don't think I'm going to change it. Would be a bit too much bother. Thanks for your comments though.

[Guest Yau]

Si Lu is close to being a homophony of Shi Lu, but it's not quite the same.

ushi. i mean they're homophony in cantonese. The name 斯路 was translated by a hongkong tv station, i guess.

[Guest]

Some westerners love to show me their chinese names, and proud of having an illusion of getting involved in the chinese culture. In my experience, I think the most frustrating names are what you can pay 1 bucks to have one in Chinatowns.

So, does that mean you don't like us using Chinese names, even if we live in a Chinese speaking place? Are you trying to be condecending, or is it just due to your English? I mean, that doesn't sound to nice... While we're at it, is 韋小馬 that bad of a name? When I started learning Chinese, our teacher gave us each a name, and that's what he gave me.

[Guest Yau]

does that mean you don't like us using Chinese names, even if we live in a Chinese speaking place?

Let me be clear on that: There're basically two ways of having a chinese name to westerners.

I. To transliterate every sound in the original names---with meaningless and inconventional combination of characters, like 奧爾布賴特 for Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright or 阿諾舒華新力華 for Arnold Schwarzenegger. These are what i called the cheap enough that everybody can pick one in souvenir shop in a chinatown.

II. To take some sound elements from the original name, and combine it into meaningful name in chinese style. The chinese name for Jonathan Spence is 史景遷 which is a good name to me. For your name 韋小馬, it's exactly in chinese style, but whether it's good or not depends on the aesthetic sense of the eyes.

[Guest]

oh, I agree! transliterating sucks. I much prefer to use the meaning. Then if makes sense in Japanese and Korean too. For example, Brian means warrior. Pick a name that has that meaning. Jason means healer. Maybe there's some Chinese name character wit that connotation, etc...

It's just a lot harder to find that kind of name.