Your Chinese name

kencarroll
May 15, 2007, 04:19 AM posted in General Discussion

 

I'm wondering if you all have you have a Chinese names.  How did you choose yours? Do you use it? My own Chinese name is '凯恩' - pronounced 'kai en'. I use it a lot in the context of the school I co-founded, www.kaien.net.cn. It's obviously a transliteration of my English name.

A lot of Chinese people have English names. In fact they use them all the time - parents will even refer to their kids by their English names, sometimes. What do you think about this?

 

 

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sophiamaillq
May 15, 2007, 04:49 AM

yes,the parents who refused their kids to use english names thought it was the way to forget their origine you are the chinese ,you need to use chinese name.......lol,i am kidding.

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bazza
May 18, 2007, 02:55 PM

小强 (Xiao Qiang) small and powerful? ;)

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kencarroll
May 15, 2007, 05:04 AM

It's a good question why they use English names. In some cases it's probably just clearer, or maybe they want to encourage the kids to learn more English.

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ruthie
May 15, 2007, 08:05 AM

-my last name begins with an 'f' and my given name is ruthie so my first Chinese instructor gave me the name 費德如. months later when i bought my first dictionary, i decided to dub myself 费如意。i didn't realize i wasn't supposed to just pick a name out of the dictionary... -when speaking chinese, i always use my chinese name because the 'th' sound (and sometimes the 'r') give Chinese trouble. i get something sounding like 'loosie.' -i think, given the pronunciation/culture barriers, it makes sense to have different names for different contexts. i know one girl in hk whose name i can easily pronounce but actually sounds more like anatomy than a name. -whether parents should choose the name at birth? can't say. i know a lot of students who have a nice time choosing their English names. but if a person's other-culture name is not legally given as a sub-name, then people can have trouble finding them (as in a people search); maybe they ought to be established at birth.

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bazza
May 15, 2007, 09:26 AM

白锐 (Bairui), given to me by Jenny. :) I used Bairui as my Mahjong username, and I attach the characters after 'Bazza' on myspace and flickr.

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RonInDC
May 15, 2007, 02:22 PM

文博 (wen bo). It was given me by my tutor after she consulted her dad. It means 'language scholar', but after a long time, someone pointed out that it's phonetically very close to Ron Burr, my given name. Pretty obvious, but I hadn't realized it before. What's funny to me is that while Chinese often ask my Chinese name, Japanese never me about a Japanese name (I don't have one) or offer to give me one. It's not rude; just a cultural thing.

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KennyK
May 15, 2007, 02:35 PM

My Chinese name was chosen by a fortune teller. Don't laugh... :P I don't know about the Mainland, but fortune tellers are big business in Taiwan. Most are very professional and even have business-like offices. Taiwanese people usually consult these fortune tellers for finding direction in life, especially the "right"/"lucky" dates for weddings or starting a business or moving. I can't say I particularly believe in that, but I think it's very interesting and my friend asked me to go with them. Anyway, my name was chosen because he said it will bring me luck. It was chosen based on my birthday, personality, horoscope, etc... So far, I have yet to see much luck, but my friend said it is because most people don't call me by my Chinese name.

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Joachim
May 15, 2007, 09:39 PM

My Chinese name 米勒 is basically a transliteration of my German last name as my first name is a pronunciation nightmare for most Chinese. My Chinese name was given to me by the Chinese authorities/ my employer when I was working as a foreign expert in China. Interestingly enough, I just heard that Baruch Spinoza, the philosopher, latinized his first name to Benedictus at some stage. It seems this was as he became part of a circle of intellectuals debating in latin etc. Thus, although names are quite arbitrary, the use of a certain language hints to cultural hegemonies at work or at least shifts in it.

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polarbear
May 15, 2007, 10:31 PM

You can probably guess my english name by looking at my picture. It is Mao Wang (Cat King) of course. My girl friend always kids me that my famiy name is cat. I make a point of calling my Chinese friends by their chinese name. I always feel in Rome you should do as the Romans. But I was actually envious of my Chinese friends that they could pick their own english name. Some of them have changed it a few times until they get one everyone likes.

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lester
May 15, 2007, 10:49 PM

I haven't got one yet. I wonder if a good transliteration of lester might be 老师. (just kidding ;)

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f1b1
May 15, 2007, 05:04 AM

At what point does having a Chinese name become beneficial? And how do you choose one? And why would my English name not be acceptable? I have met some HK people with very dodgy English names, and people would have been happy to use their Cantonese names. In fact, at least in Australia, most people use their real names unless they are from HK.

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kencarroll
May 16, 2007, 12:27 AM

Lester, I think 老师 woukdl be a good name. Why not? People use the term '老师' here in many ways, often to people who are not actually teachers - just to show respect, I guess. KennyK, I know how influential fortune tellers are inTaiwan. The Taiwanese are still very traditional with regard to superstitions. You don't get many fortune tellers on the Mainland, certainly not in big offices!

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franch
May 16, 2007, 12:28 AM

Hi everyone, this is the first time I come in because the Chinese name issue makes me restless. I understand that it would be better if I followed the transliteration tradition, but then I presume it should not exceed the traditional two characters. I could well do with Du4 as a last name but my first name is as much a nightmare as Joachim's, I reckon, since François yields a standard 弗朗索瓦 - fu2 lang2 suo3 wa3. What if I shorten it to fu2 lang2, meaning, "unclear"? I should leave it to Chinese people's feeling of how my name fits into their language, but I'm going to Xi'an next year to study, and I'd rather not be doomed to being obscure :[ Please let me know if you ever encountered such trivial dilemmas...

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flemnos
May 16, 2007, 09:38 AM

Courtesy of a Chinese teacher I once had, my chinese name is 艾杰生 (ai4 jie2sheng1) - the 杰生 is meant to be a transliteration for "Jason" and the 艾 ... well, I never really questioned it--though it was somehow derived from my last name, "Evans." Admittedly, it feels a bit awkward explaining my name as "艾,艾滋病的艾,“ ("ai," the "ai" from "AIDS") so maybe someday I'll come across something more fitting. :)

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mona
May 16, 2007, 10:14 AM

A high school friend of mine transliterated my name as 蒙娜. I used it in my email signature for a while, which prompted a friend of mine (who had no idea what it might mean) used AltaVista Babelfish to translate it into English and then asked me why I would have an email signature that reads "Mongolia is elegant"! :D

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brendan
May 16, 2007, 11:12 AM

I was given 布兰登 by my local teacher. The scope for mischief here is wild, from what I can see. When I pointed this out to my local teacher she gave an example: If you're not a great fan of the current US administration, you could transliterate its chief's name (somewhat aspirationally) as 不是. Who is it that decides the Chinese names of famous Occidentals? Is there some committee that gives approved transliterations?

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jamestheron
May 16, 2007, 01:40 PM

Mine is 允翰 (yun3han4). I use it in my Chinese classes and domain name, but not much else. I choose it out of a list my wife prepared of "acceptable" names. I don't really need one, but I really don't like the transliterations of James that some want me to accept. I recall in one of the Danwei videos, they asked people on the Beijing streets if they had English names. One guy picked Frog as his English name.

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danjo
May 17, 2007, 03:07 PM

Mine is 冬阳 (dong1yang2), given to me by a Chinese friend. It means "sunshine in winter" and Chinese people generally seem to love it (after I explain that it doesn't mean "east" and it has nothing to do with Japan). Of course, people in America generally responded with "hm... all right" when I explained it back home. I'm an English teacher and students in China are renowned for picking bizarre names, some of my favorites being Accident, Bamboo, Lamboor, Lemon, Circle, Eleven, and Rabbit.

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joachimm
May 17, 2007, 03:39 PM

Mine is Xiao Qiang, given to me by a colleague of mine. Forgot the meaning though, maybe somebody can help refresh my memory:)

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emski
May 15, 2007, 11:52 PM

I have a great Chinese name, and it came to me character-by-character. 我性范, cause my last name starts Fa ...; 名字叫晓嫣. I'm a beautiful dawn ... haha. My name is Emily, and originally i was called Meili, gahh, it's like naming your daughter "Pretty."