{"id":6075,"date":"2015-01-28T22:45:17","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T14:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=6075"},"modified":"2025-12-16T21:09:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:09:20","slug":"how-to-find-a-suitable-chinese-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-to-find-a-suitable-chinese-name\/","title":{"rendered":"How and why to find a suitable Chinese name"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n<\/a>People who know nothing about Chinese often ask me how to write their names in Chinese characters. The answer is that you can’t. Names in Chinese are fundamentally different in a way that makes converting names problematic.<\/p>\n

The problem is that to write something in Chinese, you need to use Chinese characters, the pronunciation of which is limited to some 400 syllables, ignoring tones. This might sound like a lot, but English has more than 10,000 syllables.<\/p>\n

Why names translated into Chinese sound weird<\/h3>\n

It follows then that if phonetic accuracy is your goal, you’re unlikely to get very far, or even close. Naturally, many sounds are different from English, but the syllable structure is the main issue. For example, syllables in Mandarin can’t end with consonants except -n, -ng and -r.<\/p>\n

Another difference is that Chinese characters mean something, so if you only focus on what your name sounds like, you have to sacrifice meaning completely. Or the other way around; it’s up to you.<\/p>\n

So, in other words, you can choose either a name that sounds a bit like your English name or one with a related meaning, but not both.<\/p>\n

Names transcribed into Chinese<\/h3>\n

Both these methods are used to write foreign names in Chinese. They are called \u97f3\u8bd1 and \u610f\u8bd1. Foreign personal names in Chinese are almost always based on sound, but things like place names can be based on meaning (e.g. \u51b0\u5c9b for “Iceland”).<\/p>\n

Sound translations are sometimes fairly close to the original pronunciation, but sometimes so far off that they feel unrelated. This can be for non-obvious reasons, such as a word entering Mandarin via another dialect where the pronunciation makes more sense.<\/p>\n

When I teach beginner courses in Chinese, I usually play a small guessing game with the students where I say a few names of famous people in Chinese, and they are supposed to guess whom they refer to. This is easy for cases like \u8c9d\u591a\u82ac (B\u00e8idu\u014df\u0113n), Ludwig van Beethoven, but impossible for cases like \u798f\u723e\u6469\u65af (F\u00fa\u011brm\u00f3s\u012b), Sherlock Holmes.<\/p>\n

For more about foreign names in Chinese and the challenges they cause us learners, please read Lost in transcription: Saylaw, Ice Island and Aristotle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lost in transcription: Saylaw, Ice Island and Aristotle<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n