The Final blogs 1/3: Phonetic Translations of Your Names

Not surprisingly, time is ticking away very fast. Now the detail of our page shall move to the very core part – the Chinese names for you!

As I illustrated before, there are three main strategies when a foreign name is being translated: phonetic, semantic, and the combined one with the previous two. In fact, the phonetic is applied the most by translators and people get used to making the phonetically translated names into common use. Therefore, I manage to provide Chinese names based on phonetic strategies to my facebook friends, as you people has supported not only my study but also my study. Due to a considerable amount of my friends on facebook, those names are going to be released in three times. Please follow my posts and get your Chinese name eventually. If your name is not listed, don’t worry. Just drop me a line on my theme page on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/AChineseName4UComeAndGetIt  

Then a kind response will be given as soon as possible. J

Dutch Group

Dutch

Anahi Clemens                                 阿纳伊·克莱门斯

Anne Schlaepfer                              安妮·施莱普费尔

Arianne de Vries                              阿莉安娜·德弗里斯

Babette Waaijer                              巴贝特·瓦埃尔

Barbara Roelofs                                芭芭拉·鲁洛夫斯

Chantal Pijper                                   尚塔尔·派佩尔

Claire Poorthuis                                克莱尔·波尔特豪斯

Felice Bok                                          菲利斯·博克

Florence Vollebregt                        弗洛伦斯·弗勒布雷赫特

Gerda de Rijke                                  海尔达·德莱克

Hanneke Kersjes                              汉内克·克尔谢斯

Janneke van Ravenswaaij              扬内克·范拉芬斯瓦伊

Jannie Uitterlinden                         雅妮·奥特林登

Joost Schriek                                     于斯特·斯赫里克

Juul Janssen                                      于尔·扬森

Kim Oroschin                                    基姆·奥洛辛

Lara Jansen                                       拉拉·扬森

Lynn Pieschel                                    琳·皮舍尔

Marijn Brok                                       马莱恩·布洛克

Mark Lauret                                      马克·劳雷特

Mark Vogels                                      马克·弗赫尔斯

Martine van der Velde                    马丁娜·范德菲尔德

Michiel van Bellen                           米歇尔·范贝伦

Nora Uitterlinden                            诺拉·奥特林登

Philine Tjallema                               菲林娜·查莱玛

Samantha Janssen                           萨曼塔·扬森

Sebastian Op Het Veld                   塞巴斯蒂安·奥普海特菲尔特

Tamara Evers                                   塔玛拉·埃费尔斯

Thijs Roelen                                     泰斯·鲁伦

Tim Theeuwes                                蒂姆·蒂乌斯

Yvette Slotema                               伊维特·斯洛特玛

Solo in A Country

Barbara Eesa                                    芭芭拉·埃萨

Carlota Menezes                             卡洛塔·梅内泽斯

Erin Devos                                        艾琳·德沃斯
Nina Sandberg                                 妮娜·桑德贝格

Simone Hackett                               西蒙妮·哈克特

Suren Gomitsian                             苏伦·格米奇扬

What Is Your Country's Name in Chinese?

Today I explored the friend list of my facebook account to have a deeper understanding to my online society, and also reviewed all of my acquaintances on that social network. To be honest, I usually feel sorry to my friends since I am not such an activist to join fantastic parties and events organised by them. Therefore, I am going to ‘contribute’ more to them by means of intercultural communication on my own way, as a kind of compensation to every ‘escape’ I made when I was invited to share their fun J   

Well, if a language, like Chinese, is to be promoted to others, it may be initialised by introducing how the others’ motherlands are called by Chinese people. In fact, every country has its name represented prudently by us translators since it seems a quite formal and serious issue to demonstrate a new country and its people to his/her nationals. Any controversial or improper translation or title may lead to unfriendliness, even some conflicts that nobody wants to occur.

As counted, all of my friends on facebook come from thirty (excluding China Mainland and Taiwan Area) countries across the world. Now I am going to display what those countries are, how people in China call the countries in daily life with both Chinese characters and Romanised Chinese ‘Pinyin.’ The translation here are brief/abbreviated names, rather than the full names or formal names because people prefer an easier way to mention them.

1.       Armenia                               亚美尼亚                            Yà Měi Ní Yà

2.       Austria                                  奥地利                                 Ào Dì Lì

3.       Belgium                                比利时                                 Bǐ Lì Shí

4.       Brazil                                     巴西                                      Bā Xī

5.       Bulgaria                                保加利亚                            Bǎo Jiā Lì Yà

6.       Canada                                 加拿大                                 Jiā Ná Dà

7.       Denmark                              丹麦                                      Dān Mài

8.       Estonia                                 爱沙尼亚                            Ài Shā Ní Yà

9.       Finland                                 芬兰                                      Fēn Lán

10.   France                                   法国                                      Fǎ Guó

11.   Germany                              德国                                      Dé Guó

12.   Greece                                  希腊                                      Xī Là

13.   Indonesia                              印尼                                      Yìn Ní

14.   Japan                                     日本                                      Rì Běn

15.   Latvia                                    拉脱维亚                            Lā Tuō Wéi Yà

16.   Lithuania                              立陶宛                                 Lì Táo Wǎn

17.   New Zealand                       新西兰                                 Xīn Xī Lán

18.   Norway                                 挪威                                      Nuó Wēi

19.   Peru                                       秘鲁                                      Bì Lǔ

20.   Poland                                   波兰                                      Bō Lán

21.   Portugal                                葡萄牙                                 Pú Táo Yá

22.   Republic of Ireland             爱尔兰                                 Ài Ěr Lán

23.   Republic of Korea                韩国                                      Hán Guó

24.   Romania                               罗马尼亚                            Luó Mǎ Ní Yà

25.   Russia                                    俄罗斯                                 É Luó Sī

26.   Spain                                     西班牙                                 Xī Bān Yá

27.   The Netherlands                  荷兰                                      Hé Lán

28.   The UK                                   英国                                      Yīng Guó

29.   The USA                                 美国                                      Měi Guó

30.   Turkey                                    土耳其                                 Tǔ Ěr Qí

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 

Possible Attitudes behind Your Chinese Name When Translated

Generally speaking, every Chinese character has a basic emotional property, varying from neutral, positive to negative (sometimes hostile). Practically, in contemporary, several characters has dropped into a group that consists of items without actual meaning, just simple ones applied as a pure name.

For example, in the Era of Warring States (from 475 BC to 221 BC), there were seven main states in China under the nominal governance of one supreme monarch. Those states owned their names with seven different Chinese characters respectively, “齐”(Qí), “楚” (Chŭ), “燕” (Yān), “韩” (Hán), “赵” (Zhào), “魏” (Wèi), “秦” (Qín). Among them, five names (except the first two) are now regarded as not only neutral, but also meaningless characters. Plus, they are also commonly used as surnames across China.  

On the other hand, attitudes towards some foreign people showed by Chinese people may be perceivable by judging what characters are selected when translated. If some obscure or strange (not commonly used for names) characters are chosen, then it is very likely that that guy is not a popular figure. In contrast, once some emotional and positive characters are remarked, it reflects that the target people earn more appreciation or respect from Chinese people.

Here comes some examples that I personally treat as decent Chinese names based on either semantic strategy or phonetic strategy given by both Chinese people and the figures themselves (some of them are good at Chinese culture indeed):

Sir Cecil Clementi, 1875-1947, “金文泰” (Jīn Wéntài, means “master of knowledge”)

A British colonial administrator who served as Governor of Hong Kong from 1925–30, and Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Straits Settlements from 1930–34.

Robert van Gulik, 1910-1967, “高罗佩” (Gāo Luópèi, has no specific means, but looks so indigenous)

A highly educated Dutch orientalist, diplomat, musician (of the guqin), and writer, best known for the Judge Dee mysteries, the protagonist of which he borrowed from the 18th-century Chinese detective novel Dee Goong An.

Igor Alexeevich Rogachev, 1932- , “罗高寿” (Luó Gāoshòu, means “longevous”)

The former Russian ambassador in the People's Republic of China, also known as a orientalist.

Auguste François, 1857-1935, “方苏雅” (Fāng Sūyǎ, means “elegant”)

A French consul first in Paraguay between 1893 and 1895 then in southern China between 1896 and 1904, first in Longzhou in Guangxi province and Kunming in Yunnan.

In conclusion, if you do not want to be remarked with positive or at least neutral meaning on your Chinese name, just search help from your Chinese friends and, from us – a stunning place to make you satisfied in terms of Chinese culture~

Interesting Meanings behind those Chinese Surnames

Interesting Meanings behind those Chinese Surnames

Arsenal Manager, Arsene Wenger in Beijing, with his supporters showing his name in Chinese.

Chinese characters can be seen as a vast resource of literature whose volume is about 100 thousand. However, compared with the huge size of characters, the amount of surnames used in China is thought as only around 4000, which is far smaller than the total vocabulary.

Nowadays a typical Chinese surname applies one or two characters. Therefore the length a full Chinese name varies from two to four characters. Here comes some names of Chinese celebrities as examples: the pianist Lang Lang (郎朗, 2 characters); “Chairman Mao”-Mao Zedong (毛泽东, 3 characters), the calligrapher Ouyang Zhongshi (欧阳中石, 4 characters).

Chinese Pianist Lang Lang

Behind those common-used surnames, various interesting meanings can be perceived and sometimes have particular effects when people are introduced to their new friends.

For examples: beautiful flowers like “梅” (Méi), Plum Blossom, “桂” (Gùi), Sweet Osmanthus, “兰” (Lán), Orchid, etc.

Ordinary animals like “马” (Mǎ), horse, “牛” (Niú), ox, “骆” (Luò), camel, are shared by plenty of families.

Even adjectives such as “母” (Mǔ), female and “公” (Gōng) male as gender marks are chosen, quite particular indeed. By the way, here these two cannot indicate their actual genders!

More introductions will be available soon, as I finished my statistics class recently, which often drove me mad before…XD

An Introduction of the Idea

Hi, everybody! 
In the third post, I would like to introduce more about why I chose to promote Chinese names for people who use phonetic writing systems (like the Latin alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet, etc.) here.

Apparently, the first reason is this is what the author is good at! As a Chinese national and student whose major in university is English translation, I have not only the nature of naming in Chinese but also some professional knowledge on how to deal with the foreigners’ names when translated or renovated. That means, huh, my service the information here and my service of naming are absolutely reliable and satisfactory!  

Furthermore, in terms of intercultural communication, I am convinced that it is easier and less-controversial to promote the indigenous culture of a country or nation from names because they hardly cause or get involved in historic conflicts and contemporary disagreements. Therefore under a neutral (which I think so) topic, people may have a smooth and friendly access to know more about the Chinese culture.

Besides, the third reason is……it is a compulsory work of one of my course in this semester. I still remember how I was scared when the teacher demanded us to create and run a blog for academic purpose, since I had even no idea of writing blogs on academic topic, not even my life! However, having initialised the early posts, I am gradually satisfied, perceiving that this is a perfect chance for me to improve both my writing skill and professional knowledge. Some errors may be detected by the readers, but I kindly welcome any comments and corrections J   

Wish to hear more from you, my friends. Cheers!