Chinese name?

[albatross]

My last name is Wagner and I was wondering which surname is better：魏 or 王.

It would either be 王莉颖 or 魏莉颖， which sounds better? Also, is that a good name and is there anything I should be aware of?

[Jim]

Could go for 瓦 wǎ - it is a surname and the first character used in the transliteration of your famous composer namesake. Of the two options you offer both are fine IMO, I think Wei is more of a northern surname if that makes any difference.

[889]

Reminds me of the Hong Kong governor who had to change his Chinese name from 魏德巍 to 衛奕信 because all those ghosts were considered inauspicious.

[albatross]

Which is better:

 

王莉颖

汪莉颖

[Tomsima]

Your question is like asking 'whats better: Mary, or Marie?'

 

although maybe worth noting, your name (either) is essentially a girls name. I'm presuming thats intentional?

[Lu]

Both are fine. 王 is a much more common surname than 汪, so if you pick 汪, you will often have to specify that you mean the 三点水王, especially if your tones are not great yet.

[mungouk]

4 hours ago, Lu said:

三点水王

 

Oh!  Is there a list anywhere of these kind of disambiguating terms, or common names for radicals and characters? 

 

For example I think my teacher has called 的 something like 白勺的 "de"...?

 

 

[albatross]

Is it better to have a really common name?

[Lu]

7 minutes ago, albatross said:

Is it better to have a really common name?

It has advantages and disadvantages (speaking as someone with an uncommon name, in my own language and country). Advantage: you won't meet anyone with the same name soon. Disadvantage: you'll have to spell it often and often have it misspelled. But 汪 is not that uncommon, just easily confused with 王. It all depends on your own preference, either name is fine.

[Tomsima]

1 hour ago, mungouk said:

Is there a list anywhere

 if you're after the names of the character components, check 

https://baike.baidu.com/item/部首/5032010?fr=aladdin

check the section 部首俗称

 

 if you're after the short colloquial descriptions of family name characters, heres some common ones:

https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/210831476.html

[mungouk]

3 minutes ago, Tomsima said:

https://baike.baidu.com/item/部首/5032010?fr=aladdin

 

Thanks @Tomsima

 

Lots of weird characters (for me) in there though... is that bopomofo or something? 

 

 

[Tomsima]

Ah right, no bopomofo in there, the symbols you're looking at are just the component parts of characters, not full characters in themselves (for the most part). Although good eye, as many of the bopomofo symbols are directly derived from characters, eg. 厂 

 

an example might be 罒, which is not immediately recognisable and is not a full character in itself. but you will see it appears in all sorts of characters as a component part, for example 置 or 罪. The component often sits on the top of the character, and looks like the character 四 (although it is not etymologically related), so it goes by the colloquial name 四字头