• Diss

  • Rant: Don't Butcher Chinese Names Please

yaoyueyi i'm definitely someone who butchered Chinese names because of ignorance oops.

I currently have a character where I'm now unsure if the names I used are right. What I tend to do is google for Chinese last names, then Google Chinese first names. That being said, I think they're really wrong now lmao.

I have a few questions.

My main character's name is Yun Da Xia, while her brother and father's names are

Yun Zhang Wei and Yun Zhang Yong. I found (Zhang Wei) and (Zhang Yong) under first names and just added it on to Yun. But after looking at this post and doing some research Zhang is a surname. First question is can it be a firstname?, and if no, would it be enough to omit Zhang and have them be Yun Wei and Yun Yong?

I'm sorry if these are a lot of questions, but also, is Zhao Syaoran and Shen Huiqing a name that can be used?

Thank you so much!!

edit: honestly im super scared now about all my names so im just gonna list them here im so sorry (and yes i have a ying yue :')

Tian Yao (can I make this as Xie Tian Yao or no)
Xie Ying Yue
Xie Li Rong
Murong Heng
Xie Chan Ming
Xie Li Qiang
Huang Kang
Tian Change

I'm so sorry again for butchering Chinese names. I'll try not to do so anymore in the future.

      chonnie
      I hope I can help since I am also Chinese.
      First of all, Zhao Syaoran is definitely not Chinese. In Chinese, the letter "y" cannot be used as a vowel, the character, "syao" does not exist.
      Zhang is indeed a Chinese surname, one of the most common in fact. It's not impossible to have "zhang" in the name since it could be a different character with the same pinyin spelling, but commonly, you don't see names with "zhang" in them as I have never heard of one.
      Changing names to just Wei and Yong is fine since Wei means greatness and Yong means brave. They are real names used in society.
      Your MC's name, Yun Da Xia, what I think of is 大侠 which means hero and it sounds really weird as a female name or a name in general. There are much better characters with the meaning hero to use and usually hero is not a meaning incorporated into female names.
      Hope this is helpful.

          BlueRhapsody Thank you very much! Syaoran was a name I found on a Chinese baby names website and now I'm super scared about everything ahahaha.

          As far as my MC's name I have two questions about it:
          1. Is it 'okay' to retain it as it is or is it disrespectful in any way? I currently have a few people following the novel and I'm afraid if I change it now things are gonna get weird for my readers.
          2. If it's not okay, do you have any recommendations of what I could use instead? I'm really sorry to bother you!

              chonnie
              I honestly doubt that most people reading will know since (I assume) most people aren't ethnically Chinese, so it's not the end of the world and you don't necessarily have to change it. As for the Syaoran thing, if we're talking Mandarin, that's not a thing. IDK about Cantonese and Taiwan/Hong Kong spellings.

                  chonnie
                  If you want name suggestions, I suggest that you clarify what kind of meaning you want their name to have.

                      chonnie "syao" is probably some american going "how do I say 'xiao'.... oh right syao"... so if you want to have an alternative, xiaoran is a good alternative.
                      ughhh ying yue :sob: you have no idea how much I hate that.
                      but tian yao is kinda weird.
                      li qiang isn't my favorite.
                      huang kang is atrocious.
                      I don't get why Change is one name when you have everything else in two characters. it should be Tian Chan Ge if you want to follow the other things but change is just a weird name overall bc how it looks in english.

                          BlueRhapsody yaoyueyi

                          Thank you to you both! I'm gonna go ahead and adjust the names of my characters now. I'm grateful that you guys decided to help out :))

                              Hello! I would like some help with Chinese names too! Thank you.

                              Female:

                              Yuxin
                              Yanfei
                              Meihua
                              Mo Chunying
                              Liu Mudan
                              Jiang Yingyue
                              Bai Biqi
                              Dong Biyu
                              Li Qinghe
                              Jun Lingzhu

                              Male:

                              Hongyue
                              Yangguang
                              Anguo
                              Shanyi
                              Li Jiafeng
                              Qu Xiubo
                              Dou Luyi
                              Wang Xuwen
                              Lin Yuan
                              Lu Feng

                                dusty_angel
                                no to female names: yuxin, meihua (purely bc it's overused but if you wanna use an overused name... I have nothing to say), yingyue, qinghe,
                                no to male names: hongyue, yangguang (pls no this one is so bad that I'm going to cry), anguo, shanyi, lin yuan.

                                    Can these be male names?

                                    Wei Xian He
                                    Wei Song Xian
                                    Wei Lan Xian
                                    Wei Xian Ming

                                    Thank you!

                                      yaoyueyi oo yeah it does sound like that, i was originally thinking of 海韵 hehe~ Thank you for the help!

                                      May I ask what you think of Su Biying then? or Su Yilan?

                                      BlueRhapsody I don't know why, but I was thinking of Fan Bingbing and I realized double character names can also work out :joy: thank you for the help~

                                            yaoyueyi Oh a story on here that I discovered through a review swap and am following. :P Not sure if it's your cup of tea, but I'll recommend it anyway~ The title recently got changed from When did I get married?! --> here

                                                Only reason why I mention it is because you said you liked the name, so I wondered what the meaning of Yi Lan is and if this character followed that.

                                                  Chryiss oh oof I just looked at the synopsis & a character of an unpublished work of mine is named yi meng T_T

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