• Diss
  • Rant: Don't Butcher Chinese Names Please

This is my apology in advance.
My novel has more characters with names that I just think of. I have never taken name meanings into consideration but, am sorry because right now I can't change my plot.
am sorry for using letters to create my own names that sound like Chinese but not.
Forgive me this once. mostly Chinese who use this site.

    yaoyueyi If you're not too busy, would you mind looking over a few names I had in mind?

    Female: (they're not characters yet, I was stuck between picking a name for my female lead lol)
    Bai Lifei
    Chen Yueli
    Zhao Yueling
    Bai Lihua
    Li Xueyue

    THank you!

      So, I tend to disagree here, while logically what the original poster said makes sense, my own naming conventions have actually been rather successful in the few I looked up after the fact. One turned out to be a rather prominent name in Chinese culture: Yu Chang completely by chance as I knew nothing about the Yu Chang blade before naming him. The other is a minor doctor character whose name translated White Snow (honestly very fitting for a doctor since doctors tend to wear white) but it was also random chance.

      I know the exception doesn't make the rule, but so far my names have been the exception.

        Xincerely those all sound pretty good!! lifei and xueyue are my personal favorites but they all work <3

          GabrielKross honestly tho when you say white snow or baixue, you're making me think of 白雪公主 (baixue princess) and that's actually snow white the fairytale princess. oh well tho, if that's what you like and are going for. it's not the worst I've ever seen.
          however, I did check out your novel to see exactly what you were talking about, so just a helpful tip: why would you include the accents on only bai xue's name? either do it for yu chang + all the other characters too or remove those accents. they're useless for non-chinese speaking people.
          as for your other character names, they don't sound very good either. ang li sounds like dirty pear (肮梨) (I would highly suggest using 'an li' instead or go for 'li ang' which makes sense because then it makes their last name li and doesn't give the same connotation), ma xiong sounds like horse bear (马熊) or horse brother (马兄)... this one is much worse than ang li actually

          so, "I tend to disagree here". don't think that your "naming conventions" are exactly the most successful. they haven't "been the exception". yu chang is the only decent one imo so good job for that?

            Can you check on these names too? ฅ'ω'ฅ

            Xia Meiren
            Lu Yifeng
            Lu Xian Yu
            Ji Ruo
            Zi Lin
            Mo Jing
            Bai Xui Ying
            Dong Hua
            Gu Mai Ya
            Li Bingbing
            Zhao Long Ji
            Zhang Wei
            Su Lei
            Xia Jiamu
            Xia Sinian
            Jing Yue

              BerriApplepi
              meiren is weird
              the xui in bai xui ying is not chinese aka there's no chinese character that is spelled like that in pinyin form
              I'm not a fan of long ji personally
              sinian looks weird even tho if you want to get technical it works

              otherwise they're pretty much fine!

                yaoyueyi I just thought that since Meiren means beauty, i decided to make it a name xD

                Oh, it's actually supposed to be xiu hahaha anyways, thank you so much for checking it out. ≧∇≦

                  BerriApplepi nah meiren is generally used as a title in the imperial palace for concubines HAHA
                  ohh then xiu ying is fine!

                    Xincerely I'm personally not the biggest fan of that... though it won't be the worst thing I've ever seen if you did that I guess?

                      can I ask if Meilin can be used as a female name? 😊

                      Xia Meilin

                        yaoyueyi truth is I forgot to edit it in for Yu Chang, then I decided to just let the doctor be unique. For Ang Li "dirty pear" actually fits his character completely though that again was unintentional. He's a bit lecherous and chubby. I'm going for a slightly more comedic approach. Ma Xiong was specifically named that for a single joke. I haven't really given much thought to character names in general outside of Ma Xiong since I specifically wanted to make a joke. However, since they mostly fit what I'm going for with the characters I would still disagree with you.

                          Like in all honesty, there are several characters who I haven't even revealed their given birth names at all, one of which is the female lead of the story. Most of the characters associated with her haven't had birth names revealed.

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