Romantization of 德：der

[albatross]

Whenever I see the character “德” in people’s names I always see it romanticized as “der”. Why is this?

 

[abcdefg]

Are you sure? Not arguing or implying that you are wrong, but maybe it would be helpful if you posted some examples. I'm pretty sure I more often see 德 Romanized as "de," though I haven't specifically done a survey.

[889]

Derguo?

 

Liu Derhua?

 

Jingderzhen?

[albatross]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Der_Ling

 

Like her

 

or my friend 德美 which is written der-mei on all her documents and IDs

[Jim]

Only one that springs to mind is Princess Der Ling and her fame overseas predates hanyu pinyin. 

[陳德聰]

There have been multiple romanization schemes over the years and that sound is often transcribed as “er” by people with British English accents.

[lakesandrivers]

3 hours ago, Jim said:

predates hanyu pinyin

 

That is likely indeed. The Princess as a historical figure likely already had her name romanized by historians before pinyin. For example, Chiang Kai-shek is more famously known as that, as compared to Jiang Zhongzheng.

[889]

Chiang Kai-shek is a romanization of 蒋介石 Jiang Jieshi. I always thought 中正 Zhongzheng was a standalone, not normally used with his family name.

 

[Lu]

Taiwanese sometimes use unconventional romanisation for their names, because they often don't know pinyin and just make something up. Is your friend 德美 Taiwanese by any chance?

[imron]

If anyone in modern times is romanising their names like that, it's highly likely that it's because they got sick of every English speaking person mispronouncing 'de'.

 

A native English speaker with no knowledge of Chinese pronunciation trying to say 德美 is likely to get closer to the correct pronunciation from 'dermei' than 'demei'