What's your Chinese name & what does it mean?

Do you have a Chinese name and what does it mean? :heart_eyes:

My Chinese name is 柯海娜 (kēhǎinà).

柯 because it is similar to the first part of my family name,
海 because my name is related to the ocean/sea,
娜 to keep the similarity with the “ne” at the end of my name.

One of my Chinese teacher created it for me. How about you?

1 Like

The embassy gave us Chinese names when we moved to China…
My name is 凯芳妮 (Kǎi fāng nī) which phonetically resembles my real name Stefanie Kaina. 凯 means something along the lines of ‘triumphant’ and 芳 “fragrant”… hence I’m a good-smelling successful woman. :joy: I also got told a couple of times from Chinese that it’s a pleasantly sounding name, so I guess they did a good job. :smiley:

1 Like

Love that @Stefanie-Mandarin-HSK_3

For some reason Chinese really struggle to give me a name.

I’ve been stuck with 马克思 which is shared with Karl Marx :rofl: needless to say it gets a laugh everytime I share it.

My name is Max Hobbs if anyone has any recommendations :innocent: I had the suggestion from a native speaker - 河马 which means hippo. I (not so) politely declined :sweat_smile:

1 Like

My Chinese name is 冯哲 Féng Zhé

Oddly enough, it was given to me by a British co-worker, known as the “mad Mank”. He majored in Chinese in University and when I first arrived in China and started the job, he asked me if I had a Chinese name. I replied that I didn’t. He said “give me a few days to think about it, and I’ll come up with one”. He came up with Féng Zhé.

I love this name. 冯 Féng is a common surname but it looks like a horse, and my real name Phillip means “lover of horses”. 哲 Zhé means Philosophy in Chinese so both has the “Phil” connection and makes me sound like a deep thinker :grinning:.

Every Chinese person that I’ve ever told my name automatically says it’s 地道 (authentic) and that it’s a nice name. They could just be blowing smoke , like the old “you speak Chinese so well blah blah”. But I love the name. It’s even on my Chinese drivers license.

2 Likes

Mine is 吕涵涵 lǚ hán hán

涵涵 because everyone said that a Chinese teacher I worked with (who was also a very good friend of mine) called 玉涵 was like my twin and all of her friends called her 涵涵. So one day I switched my WeChat name to 涵涵 and it just kind of stuck!

It’s also perfect because the pinyin hanhan uses all the letters of Hannah and both names can be written backwards and are the same name!

吕 because when I applied for a Chinese language program, a family name was required and I couldn’t really write characters at the time but 2 squares seemed manageable :laughing: I also really liked the sound and had a very close friend with the same surname.

So in a way both parts of my name are like little souvenirs from the people I met in China :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

5 Likes

@Ottavia-Mandarin_Simplified_HS I believe you just received your new Chinese name :eyes:

You’re right, I finally have a Chinese Name :heart_eyes: which is: 夏塔雅
夏 stands for summer because I was born in summer and I love this season
塔 stands for “sweet” because I love desserts
雅 stands for elegant

I love it!

2 Likes

Sounds nice, sounds rather close to your Italian name. Of course you need a sunny thing in your name. :sun_with_face:
why does 塔 stand for sweet? I am proud to know it as tower. 东方明珠塔,from a LTL lesson :wink:

Maybe 蛋塔 ?

1 Like

Yes it should come from the dessert 蛋塔!

I was also thinking that my hometown, Bologna, is famous for the two towers so the “tower” meaning is perfect too ahah :joy:

1 Like