Aurora Posted October 12, 2007 at 08:27 AM Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 at 08:27 AM Hi! I'm moving to China in a few months time and I will be studying Mandarin. I would love to have a Chinese name, and the university strongly encourages us to have our names ready for registration purposes. Therefor I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I don't want to come up with a name by myself (of course) since I'm a pure novice when it comes to Chinese, and I wouldn't want to get an obscure name that would con notate something totally different than intended and that I'm not capable to understand yet. I googled around the internet and found this wonderful resource that is this forum. And I'm wondering if there is anyone out there that would be able to help me come up with any suggestions for the given name in chinese? I would appreciate this immensely, and would love to receive any ideas/suggestions! Now; I'm guessing I should describe myself a bit in order to give some direction/suggestion towards names. I'm a European girl in my early 20's. I was born in the autumn (september), on an early morning (eventhough I'm a night-tme person nowadays). I would describe myself as a bright, outgoing and sweet-natured person. I'm very fond of literature, especially classics, and culture. I hold high standards in every aspect of life, especially morally. I most highly value elegance and aesthetics (beauty) as well as intelligence and strive for a harmonious balance between them. Others usually describe me as social, intelligent and compassionate.. My European given names are very poetic and beautiful (in my opinion, of course) and at the same time they are classic and "classy", and my mother put a lot of thought in to them which I've cherished my entire life. I see these names as representative of myself, and this is why I would like to have a chinese name that has meaning to it rather than a translation of the sounds of my names.. My favorite flowers are lotuses, orchids and lily's. My favorite color is a beautiful pale pink, like the color of white peonies that have a dash of pink in them. So, that was a bit about me. I hope there is some kind people in this forum that could take a few minutes to give me suggestions, I would value this immensly and be very grateful! Thank you in advance to any kind person willing to give me any suggestions! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdn_in_bj Posted October 12, 2007 at 09:05 AM Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 at 09:05 AM Does it matter to if your Chinese name sounds nothing like your European name? If so, then you can focus on the meaning of characters. You could start by choosing a Chinese surname. According to my dictionary, 斐 (fei3) and 郁 (yu4) are both Chinese surnames which also have the meaning "elegant". 藇 (xu4) is also a surname and has the meaning of "beautiful". If you decide to choose a different surname, there are several other characters meaning "elegant", "beautiful" and for different types of flowers so you can still incorporate these meanings in your Chinese name. You should also have a look at this thread: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12838-is-this-an-ok-chinese-name According to one poster in that thread you should be careful so that your name isn't "too feminine" and end up sounding too much like a "working girl's name". I'm not sure how she'd know about that (I certainly don't), but I guess it'd be along the same lines of "stripper names" in the west. I know this isnt much, but hopefully it'll give you some ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurora Posted October 12, 2007 at 12:25 PM Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 at 12:25 PM cdn_in_bj: Thank you so much for your help! I really appreciate it. I would prefer for my Chinese name to not sound like my English name, I feel that there would be a wider array of more suitable choices this way. This is also why I chose not to write out my given English names. This screenname, Aurora, is actually "only" the name of the amazing dog I grew up with. ;) I like all the ideas of surnames that you posted, thank you for taking the time! 斐 (fei3) jumps out at me, I like the feeling that I get from the sound, and the meaning of it is so nice, more than I could've hoped for (and I sure wouldn't have found it among all different possible surnames probably)! I had no idea about how a too feminine name might be translated into a "working girl" name so this was a great insight! I've been under the impression that Chinese names tend to not show a gender specification as is the common case among English names, but hadn't reflected at all regarding how a too feminine or masculine sounding name would be perceived. Very insightful! Once again, thank you for this great start towards finding my chinese name! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lu Posted October 14, 2007 at 08:32 AM Report Share Posted October 14, 2007 at 08:32 AM Fei might be a surname, but it seems to be a rare one, I've never seen it before. I think it might be a better idea if you take it as a given name. You could take Yu as surname, incidentally, that's the surname of a famous Chinese writer (Yu Dafu). Chinese names are actually often quite gender-specific, in that boys get names like strong, brave, honour, and girls names that mean beautiful, graceful, or precious stone. I was born in the autumn (september), on an early morning (eventhough I'm a night-tme person nowadays)Too bad 秋生 (qiu1sheng1, born in autumn) is already taken... (name of HK actor Antony Wong). 晨生 (chen2sheng1, born in the early morning) might work though.I most highly value elegance and aesthetics (beauty) as well as intelligence and strive for a harmonious balance between them.You could consider 美穎 (mei3ying3, beautiful and intelligent), but that is a bit trite. I don't think it would be working girl-ish, but it's not very original either.I'm not a native speaker though, best wait for what they say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted October 14, 2007 at 10:15 AM Report Share Posted October 14, 2007 at 10:15 AM I like the -生 (sheng) names. Qiu Sheng (秋生, born in Autumn), 港生 (gang3 sheng1, born in Hong Kong, Jacky Chan's real name), 京生 (jing1 sheng1, born in Beijing, name of an activist), 安生 / 寧生 (An1 Sheng1 / Ning2 Sheng1, born quiet and peaceful, real names of twin sisters in HK) are all very nice. And they are basically unisex. I like 百合 (bai3 he2, lily) as a name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yonglin Posted October 14, 2007 at 12:19 PM Report Share Posted October 14, 2007 at 12:19 PM Fei might be a surname, but it seems to be a rare one, I've never seen it before. My Chinese TA in Canada was surnamed 斐. I think it's a nice name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reisen Posted October 14, 2007 at 12:55 PM Report Share Posted October 14, 2007 at 12:55 PM 曦(xi)， is nice, means twilight in the dawn, and also means hope, which sounds the same with 希. 昀”（yun），sounds the same with another word 云（clouds），means the sunshine with power and vitality, in chinese means 喷薄而出的日光, can anyone give a better translation? 安（an）, means, quiet, calm, safe. a very nice name. 晗（han）, means , the sky will soon bright now. my favourite words. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Li Yuzuo Posted October 15, 2007 at 01:42 AM Report Share Posted October 15, 2007 at 01:42 AM Hi dear, why not try 秋晨 （qiu1 chen2), I think it's a very beautiful girl's name. sounds good, and accordant with the autumn-morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted October 15, 2007 at 05:09 AM Report Share Posted October 15, 2007 at 05:09 AM 秋晨 （qiu1 chen2) is good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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