I actually have been thinking of a general question over something that can bug me in some translations. Two word names and three word names.
Yue Yin Mei vs Yue Yinmei (I won't go over those who would write Yue YinMei, the abuse of improper capitals is simply criminal)
Whilst it's probably a terrible name off the top of my head, I was wondering whether one was more correct than the other, and under what conditions you would define which format it is etc..
Wolfick it's purely a stylistic choice!
both yin mei and yinmei work to convey the meaning across. based on my own personal preferences, if it's two character name, such as "岳梅", I would write it like Yue Mei, with Yue being the surname, and Mei being the first name character, although her name would not be Mei; it would be Yue Mei (if that makes sense lmao). if it was a three character name, such as "岳荫梅“, I would write it like Yue Yinmei since I find that this is easier to read for english speakers. Yue would be the surname, and Yinmei would be the first name, and people would call her either Yue Yinmei or Yinmei.
overall though, I would say that whether or not the translator/author picks to format her name as Yin Mei or Yinmei, they should keep the formatting the same throughout the story and the same for all the characters. (so basically, if I were to have another character named, say, "陈闻柳’, and I wrote Yinmei's name with the two first-name-characters pieced together, I would write the other character's name as Chen Wenliu because I did the same formatting for Yinmei.)
if they don't keep the formatting coherent, then that's the sign of a careless translator/author since it can confuse some readers.
hope this explanation helped. :smile:
Esther_kim jan is not chinese.
jian lan kinda makes me think of "picking up trash" but... I mean, it's not the worst name out there, i guess. really depends on how you look at it.
Hi! Can you please suggest a female name with 'Red' in it?
I was searching and found Dandan which means 'Cinnabar red'. But I don't think it would be nice to use it as a name for an imperial princess xD I'm planning to use it for a character who will be pertaining to 'Little Red Riding Hood'
If there's none, is it okay if you can suggest me a cute/lovely name for a princess? I hope I'm not asking much ><
BerriApplepi I really don't have time to be individually rec'ing people names for them only.
you can look above for the lists of names, and you can ask me to review names, but otherwise, I'm not doing individual suggestions.
yaoyueyi Oh! Okay Is the name Xiaochi okay for a female name? 
BerriApplepi uhh no
I see where you're going but 小吃 is the first thing that comes up to mind and that's streetfood
yaoyueyi Streetfood
Okay, okay. Imma come back once I found something else.
yaoyueyi Hi, it's me again haha XD
What do you think of these names for a modern novel?
Female: Su Meixiu, or Su Meixue (iffy about the latter one bc it sounds like beautiful snow lmao :laughing: ), Su Baibai or Su Lanlan
Male: Ling Fulei, Wei Shen or Wei Haiyun or Wei Jinhai
Thank you so much in advance!
Can SongYi be a name? What does it mean?
UnjustlyUnderpaid what's the meaning of Pinyin?
Resplendently pinyin is the 'alphabet' of chinese.
for example... the name:
杨雨嘉. it is yáng yǔ jiā. yáng (杨) yǔ (雨) jiā (嘉) would be considered the pinyin form of the characters.
basically, when typing chinese on a keyboard, a pinyin input keyboard is used to form the characters.
pinyin is also used for chinese speakers to learn new words.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin <-- for more info.
Xincerely
The names Baibai and Lanlan sound really bad unless it's a nickname since (I'm assuming it's 白白 and 蓝蓝) her name literally means White-white or Blue-blue and you wouldn't really name your kid that. You should think about the meanings and keep in mind Chinese parents often name their children with attributes that they want them to have. For example, beautiful (mei 美).
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.
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.
yaoyueyi Okay, thanks for your time! I hope you have a nice day!
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~
how's Jian Lan or Jan Lian ? 
so sorry for butchering
