The Gender Mark of Foreigners’ Names When Translated into Chinese

Are you male or female? The answer is very likely a certain one to yourself. But how can people judge that when they do not have a chance to see any of your photos, or hear some records of your voice? A very handy way to know the western people’s genders could be having a look of their given names, for example, as Angela (Merkel) for women and Richard (Nixon) for men. Although some of our friends may have particular given names that are applicable for both male and female – Ashley (Ashley Cole and Ashley Jensen) , or seem quite ‘neutral’ for us to gauge – Taylor (Taylor Dickie – one of my classmates in Utrecht), we shall feel free to follow the common ideas towards names in terms of gender preference since they are somehow dominant among the majority of our acquaintances.

Even so, for Chinese people it still keeps a little bit tricky to estimate a foreigner’s gender. Virtually, there is a considerable population in China who are not that familiar with some rules about naming or know-how to verify foreigners, not like any other Chinese guys you have probably meet in the lands out of China. Therefore, usually our translators will ‘decorate’ those foreign names with gender marks when they are translated into Chinese in order to inform the Chinese nationals whether those foreigners are male or female. Mostly female people are highlighted because it is handily understandable by using several ‘feminine’ characters – not really defined as feminine ones, but usually stand for tender, soft, beautiful objects.

For instance, characters with a ‘herbal component’ – 艹 (means plant, herb, flower, etc.) on top, are usually selected for women. Here comes some examples: Josephine Napoleon

Barbara – 芭芭拉       

Josephine – 约瑟芬                                            

Lisa – 莉萨

Nancy – 南茜                         

                             
                                           Josephine Napoleon 约瑟芬·拿破仑 

Furthermore, female people will be marked with characters that have particular meanings or styles. In general, they indicate soft, tiny, tender objects, which might show how Chinese people think of the female gender. Jennifer

Agnes – 阿格尼丝 (silk)                              

Jennifer – 珍妮弗 (treasure, precious)    

Lolita – 洛丽塔 (beautiful)

Madeleine – 玛德琳 (jade)

                                                  

                                                                                                                             Jennifer Lopez 珍妮弗·洛佩兹

Finally, the most obvious and direct way, is to choose those characters with a ‘ female component’ – 女 (woman, girl, female, etc.), like examples below: Anne

Anne – 安妮

Christina – 克里斯蒂娜

Patricia – 帕特里西娅

Veronica – 维罗妮卡             

                                         
                                                            
                                                  Anne Frank 安妮·弗兰克