请问 please help me choose my 中文名字

[Pascal Ma]

大家好！

I've been a student of chinese for two trimesters now, and I am planning to go to 北京语言大学 next year if all goes well. Anyway, I always meant to get myself a chinese name at some point. But now in one admission form, they ask for it, so apparently, the time is now.

My name is Pascal Martel. I chose the surname 马, it fits my french last name and it is one of the most used ones. That was easy!

Now the first name is trickier. I would rather have something meaningful than phonetically close. If the phonetics vaguely match, even better...

Pascal is from the hebrew for "passover" so something along the lines of a passenger, traveler. Since I love to travel, great! Maybe something with 征?

Since I am from the province of Quebec (魁北克) in Canada, maybe something with 北 or 白 (as in the snow). I also liked the name Lui Bei from 三国演义, so 备.

I have also always liked the character 长.

The character 彬 is nice too and I like the meaning (cultivated).

It would help me a lot if you could validate, like are the characters appropriate for a name, would it sound weird, is there a negative connotation, a weird homophone maybe? Can one borrow from Lui Bei's name?

So here are some names I taught, can you help me with them?

马白长

马北长

马北征

马备征

马备长

马彬征

Or some other combinations with maybe more suitable characters...

I try to have the second one start with a "b" or a "p", the third one with a "ch", "zh", "c", "z", "x", "sh", "s", "r", "q", "j"

Also, I have read somewhere about counting strokes in your characters (from the traditional version of the characters even!) and determining if they're yin or yang, and deciding which characters to use (yin-yin-yang, yin-yang-yang, etc but not yin-yang-yin). I personally don't really care, but will the Chinese people notice it? Like if my name fits the pattern of yin and yang, will they notice and maybe think "Wow this man really put efforts into creating his mingzi"? Or maybe they will not care at all? Is there really a "plus-value" to that?

麻烦你们了!

[skylee]

Perhaps you could consider 馬 博 逵.

博 matches the p/b sound. And 逵 matches the c in Pascal and has the same pronunciation as 魁 for Quebec, and is a nice word for names.

[zhxlier]

My 2 cents:

Try not to put 长 as the third character. As 长 has different pronunciations, people won't be able to know how to pronounce your name. 长 as the second character is ok. I like 长白。

伯长 would sound very 三国-ish. (I know it contradicts with the point I just made - but believe me this name will make no confusion in pronunciation.)

From the characters you chose I can see 马长征 emerging. It would be a very authentic name in the 50s, 60s or 70s (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March). The fact that the name is so communist China and that you are a foreigner will make lasting impressions if you like the effect.

征 surely is not the best word for travel and it has implications of initializing a war (征战). So be careful with it. (Again 长征 is ok as it is so commonly used. - I seem to be contradicting myself constantly!)

I don't think people will notice or care strokes of the name.

Edited December 15, 2009 at 10:10 PM by imron
no need to quote the entire OP.

[Pascal Ma]

zhxlier, skylee, thank you!

I am grateful for your help!

Now that I have a few serious choices, I will think them over.

I wonder, when friends will address me, will they mostly use the two characters of the mingzi or just the third one?

Like if I was to choose 马长白, would people I'm close to call me 长白 or just 白?

[skylee]

I think they are likely to call you 小馬, but there is no fixed rule. If you choose 馬長白 I might call you 小白.

[jbradfor]

Pascal is from the hebrew for "passover" so something along the lines of a passenger, traveler.

This might be a translation issue, but I believe that in Hebrew "passover" is usually used for the holiday, and it comes from "passing over" certain houses (to not smite the first born of the Jewish households). Nothing to do with traveling or being a passenger.

[atitarev]

Pascal just in case you don't know, the transliteration or cinicisation of "Pascal" is 帕斯卡尔 (Pàsīkǎ'ěr).

[chrix]

want to second jbradfor. It's form the name of the Jewish High Holiday Pessach, which is known as Passover in English, which in turn gave rise to the term for Easter in many languages, including most Romance languages. And seeing that Quebec is 85% Catholic, the connection would probably be stronger to the Christian holiday of Easter rather than the Jewish holiday of Passover.

[Pascal Ma]

Yes, Pascal is linked with easter, and in french it is much more obvious (Easter in french = Pâques). But from what I understand, the Jewish holyday of Pessach (passover in english) commemorates the escape from Egypt, the "passage" of the Jews from Egypt to Israel.

Anyway this leading to that, passage to passenger, to traveler... I know Pascal doesn'T mean traveler but there's a link (albeit not so close).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover

@skylee : 小白 is cute... right?

@atitarev : thanks, yes I knew, but I wanted the 3 character 姓名.

[Pascal Ma]

I think they are likely to call you 小馬, but there is no fixed rule. If you choose 馬長白 I might call you 小白.

Hmm, wait, does that have a sexual connotation?

[skylee]

Not that I know of. 小白 is just cute, and sounds like the name of a pet. But more likely people will cal you 小馬. Personally I prefer my suggestion, but 長白 is not bad, if it is what you like. People might think the name is related to 長白山.

[helenying]

Hi Pascal, I like the last one 马彬征better，but prefer to put 征 in front, only for pronunciation comfortable ,it is just my feeling the meaning for this name when i first saw , seems means conquer politely or peacefully, 征means征服，彬means 彬彬有礼. For nickname, people can call you bin if you like. ^_^ Also, i think your name as 帕斯卡尔 is also beautiful .

(tips: 征服 Pinyin: zhengfu Meaning: conquer

彬彬有礼 Pinyin: bin bin you li Meaning: well mannered )

Hope it can helps ^_^

[Pascal Ma]

Thank you all for your suggestions!

Well, I am still undecided but I feel closer to a choice now.

Sorry for not posting back sooner but I feel a little silly always asking people for opinions again and again and that I am still undecided.

Did it take that long for you guys to choose a name?

Anyway, I started searching names on Facebook/人人网/Google and see the number of hits to have a clue of how popular names are.

Well here are names I'm looking at now and their "popularity"

        FB        人人网 Google
马彬杰    0          13       130
马长杰    2           7       1160
马杰龙    0           3       2420
马龙杰    1          28      3640
马文杰   〉500        3      76800
马文轩    2          86      6000

Right now I like the character 文 very much, so the last two are my top choices.

马文杰 seems VERY common, maybe a little too common?

[anonymoose]

I wouldn't take the number of Google hits to necessarily represent how popular a name is. After all, "Jermajesty" comes up with over 430000 hits, and I doubt there's more than a handful of people on this planet with that name.

[kevinxa]

Your name is Pascal Martel，and there is a nice man in 三国演义 who is good at using martel。

So I think you can use his name 武安国。

And you like 马。

So，马安国 is very cool。

[Pascal Ma]

Your name is Pascal Martel，and there is a nice man in 三国演义 who is good at using martel。

So I think you can use his name 武安国。

And you like 马。

So，马安国 is very cool。

Nice, but it would feel weird to me to have 国 in my given name.

Anyway, I believe I have found now.

It probably will be 马彬杰

What do you think of it?

Thanks everyone for your input, it was all very much appreciated.

[iris_guo]

I like 马一彬，一 is very special， and 彬 means genty， and there is little people‘s name choose the word 一。

[Hofmann]

It's fine.

[veve.chen]

I am a Chinese in my view I think 马文轩 is fine but you know 马 means horse

[playdead]

i got one, 马狄翱. ma di ao, or 马迪翱. it's meaningful and kinda same pronunciation as your surname.