中文名字 Choosing a Chinese Name

[xinoxanu]

1 hour ago, Demonic_Duck said:

14 hours ago, xinoxanu said:

莎拉 ... shares pronunciation with 杀了

 

I mean sure, if lā is the same as le. But in that case, 大 = 的、掌 = 蒸、含 = 恨, and so on... a ton of Chinese words would suddenly become indistinguishable.

 

Certainly.

 

I was just making a point of avoiding names that can be easily understood as something with negative or silly connotations, which the Chinese can get really frantic about. Admittedly I also made this statement when I only have a comparatively low level of Chinese... but when you think of the sound "shala" in Chinese, aside from 杀了 or 沙拉 does something else come up?

[Demonic_Duck]

1 hour ago, xinoxanu said:

when you think of the sound "shala" in Chinese, aside from 杀了 or 沙拉 does something else come up

 

沙拉 and 莎拉 are the only words that easily spring to my mind.

 

To be honest I can't explain exactly why 莎拉～杀了 seems so tenuous to me, when other near-homonyms seem less so. For example, I used to have a phone number containing 7924, and someone pointed out to me that it's very inauspicious because it sounds like 妻走儿死. For some reason, that homonym seems a lot more plausible.

 

I think the difference might be something to do with the neutral tone of 了, or because 了 is a particle. Or maybe it's because 杀了 isn't a self-contained word, phrase, or collocation, but rather two words that don't have any necessary connection.

[SarahBeth93]

大家好。

 

Thank you so much for all of your feedback! I really appreciate all of the help. It seems like I'm getting closer but might not have hit the nail on the head yet.

 

I'd be so thankful for your thoughts on these almost-transliterated names of Sarah:

 

熙茹 (Xīrú)

 

诗雪 (Shīxuě)

 

嘉茹 (Jiārú)

 

If combined with a surname, which it seems might not be necessary, I'd probably want it to be 戴, if that makes a difference when combined with these name options.

 

感谢您的意见。

 

My favorite of these three is 诗雪. I believe that the meaning of 诗 is poem and the meaning of 雪 is snow, or clean.

[Lu]

All these sound nice to me, but at this point you need to find a native speaker's judgment, and it looks like you might not find that here. Can you perhaps ask the friend's mom who lives in Taiwan? Or your Chinese teacher, assuming you have one?