Rant: Don't Butcher Chinese Names Please
Can SongYi be a name? What does it mean?
UnjustlyUnderpaid what's the meaning of Pinyin?
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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).
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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.
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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!
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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~
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.
Xincerely
Welp I have a friend who’s name is bing bing
Suggestion: Maybe use famous Chinese names except change around the surnames.
BlueRhapsody There’s a Bing Bing in a different story as well c: I think using celebrity names but changing the surname doesn’t do much Bc most people can tell when you’re trying to use a celebrity name, but maybe using 1-2 of the characters would work 
Xincerely Yeah, don't be too obvious, but if you take real people's names, at least you'll know they're good/legit.
Is it alright to name a person as pine tree? Like qing song?
Hi! Sorry for bothering you again, but what do you think of the name Ye Chen Yuan and what does it translate to? I'm hoping it fits for the character I'm writing. Thank you so so much again!
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Hi! I'm here again for question 
May I use Li Hua, Gu Jichen and Tan Luo as male names? 
BerriApplepi li hua is a female name??
I can't say that gu jichen is my favorite. there's something about it that's offputting... it's so-so I guess
tan luo is just like jichen.... so-so
yaoyueyi oh! Okay! Thank you!
yaoyueyi still confused though since I have zero knowledge about Chinese words and alphabet