Who has a Chinese name yet? Mine is 周浩辰
Originally I was called 安徳思 (for Andreas) but I found the tone combination 1, 2, 1 impossible to pronounce and its such an obvious foreign name, I wanted something else.
My Chinese flatmates came up with 周浩辰 and I have to say I get a lot of compliments for my Chinese name.
Whats yours? Or are you looking for one?
Mine is 马克思 but I really want to change this. Having the same name as Karl Marx always gets some odd expressions from natives.
To this day no one has managed to discover a new name for me either!
Any help welcomed!!
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I’ve been going by 马诺, pretty close to my western name. Not sure if it’s a name used in China at all but sounded good to me 
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I like 马诺 
Literally translated its the “horse that promises”. 
It is clearly recognisable as a foreign name though, which can be good or bad, depending on what you are looking for.
In general Chinese choose names very differently to the west. Names are often a “wish” or a description of the child from the parent’s who give it to the that child. Also, the exact time and date of birth can pre-determine what name is lucky for a child. It is also a very creative process - there are no limits how a child can be named.
When I explain to Chinese people that in the west we usually name children, in most cases by picking the name of someone in the past (relatives, heroes, someone we like) or what we feel sounds good out of a "fixed“ number of names, they often find that quite a boring process.
So a real Chinese name needs to be “given” by someone who knows you, your life and your character. A teacher who spends a lot of time with you can be an option.
However, it takes quite a while to build up that relationship.
We also have a Chinese name generator Chinese Name Generator - Super Quick, Super Simple
though this also mainly follows transliteration as a software does not understand your character.
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I was playing around with characters: pictures，sounds, meanings.
What about: 田书森
It is only a first try, so please tell me if this is the way to go. 
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I have 薇琪 as my Chinese name, which is basically a translation of my Western first name. But I asked quite a few of my Chinese friends what they thought before I adopted it and they liked it so I kept it. I think that it translates as something like “fine jade fern”.
I never quite know what to do about the family name though. I can translate mine but it takes four characters and is very obviously not a Chinese name. @Andreas_Admin_Flexi - 周 is a family name, isn’t it? Is it normal to also choose a Chinese family name as a foreigner?
I found a list online of common and uncommon Chinese family names, which was really interesting, for example 通过 is apparently the rarest by usage statistics and 贶 is one of the oldest in use. 
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Yes usually foreigners will also take a Chinese surname.
Mine used to be 安 because it sounds the same as the first two letters of my European name Andreas. So it was 安浩辰
However, everyone started asking me why I have a Korean name - somehow that sounded very Korean to Chinese natives.
So I changed again. I picked 周 because
- It’s a historic name - the 周 dynasty
- I had recently read quite a bit about 周恩来
- It’s easy. I was at quite a basic level back then but I could write 周一，周二，周三etc.
So it was a logical step to recycle a character I alread knew how to read and write, as in China your name is one of the few things you still need to hand write reasonably frequently.
Its up to you, but for a family name, that’s a bit your “clan”, so I would look for some people or dynasties you feel some kind of connection to and use that one. Then try it out on your teacher and they will tell you if it sounds weird (ask a few, several opinions are more reliable than one).
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It sounds nice to me, however for a Chinese name I would rely on the help of native speakers. I speak Mandarin all day at work however I do not “feel” the language the same way as a native speaker does.
My knowledge of Chinese poems is quite poor and what I see as pretty in Mandarin and a native speaker would is quite different.
I would first get one from Chinese Name Generator - Super Quick, Super Simple and then when you have some Chinese native friends who know you as a person (can be a teacher but they really should know you), ask them for support to get a “real” Chinese name.
My inspiration back then was 大山 who was the world’s most famous Canadian 20 years ago because literally every Chinese person knew him from his TV shows etc. His name had no connection to his English name, but sounded really cool.
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My new Chinese name is 书海, 韩书海.
I like it for many reasons.
It actually was suggested to me by a native, a Tandem language partner. I asked him to find something with books. The 韩 is maybe sounding a bit too native a name for me as a beginner? It sounds similar to my German family name though.
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I like that name. No problem to sound native already - so you won’t have to change your name once you are fluent
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My Chinese name is 柯海娜, given to me by a LTL teacher when I was a student in Beijing in 2015.
- 柯 kē : because the sound starts just like my family name
- 海 hǎi : means “sea, ocean”, since my name Marine also means that
- 娜 nà : to nicely end the pronunciation of the name, and recall the “ine” part of Marine
The very first Chinese name given to me was something like 玛琳 mǎ lín which also sounds pretty to me, but 柯海娜 got me lots of compliments and sounds more native too
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My Chinese name probably needs some work, but I chose 凯莉 for my first name, and a Mandarin version of my great-grandfather’s name for my surname: 蔡蔓平 (Choy Mon Ping). His daughter, my grandmother, and his grand-daughter, my mother, are/were both Cantonese but neither had Cantonese names owing to the White Australia policy that forced everyone to assimilate to English culture. 
I believe 蔡 is the Mandarin alternative to the Cantonese surname Choy. Can anyone confirm that?
蔡蔓平凯莉 is a bit long but it’s meaningful. Apparently Mon Ping were fairly common Cantonese first names in the early 1900’s as I saw these names in books which recorded the names of Chinese miners in Tingha, NSW, near where my grandmother stayed during the Sydney polio outbreak in the 1930s, and where my mother now lives. I don’t think any of my ancestors were tin or gold miners, but some of them might have been gardeners. Mon Ping (or Samuel) became a restaurant owner in Sydney.
Unfortunately， Australian customs thought Ping was his surname, so all his descendants got Ping as their surname instead of Choy.
Long story… sorry.
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My Chinese name is 冯哲 Feng2 Zhe2
I’ve always been happy with this name. It was actually given to me in my early days in China. I was with a co-worker and he asked me if I had a Chinese name, I replied that I didn’t. He said to give him few days and he’d come up with one for me. He chose 哲 Zhe2 because it refers to 哲学 (philosophy) and my first name is Phil. He thought 冯 Feng2 just sounded nice with it and its a common Chinese last name. I personally like 2 character names and I think they sound a bit “old school”. I also have no middle name in my real name.
The funny thing is this guy was not even Chinese! He’s English! But he has a degree in Chinese and speaks very well.
Everyone has always complimented me on the name. My mother in law has never called me anything else, I respond naturally to it. Every time a 快递 driver delivers a package they confirm my name and I always hear the 2 second tones clear as a bell.
@Andreas-Mandarin-HSK_6 This reminds me, how can I change my user name to 冯哲FengZhe ?
Oh, this is quite funny too(see picture).
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Yes, that was my reason for having a Chinese name right away. The tones were crucial for me. I wanted to hear it without any problems when I was addressed in a lesson. I love the combination of first and third tones, and the sound of 书海 really stands out in a Chinese context. Makes it easier for both teacher and student. 
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I’m jealous as I just get laughed at when I tell my Chinese name, or a sympathetic nod!
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sorry, for replying late, to change your username, you go to “My Profile” LTL Flexi Classes and update it there. Your username on Flexi Forum will also be changed, but it will take a few hours (always less than a day) for the new username to be displayed in Flexi forum.
Hope that helps.
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Ok I changed in my “First name” section. That will not affect my billing name for the credit card will it?
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No not at all. The name on the Credit Card you enter on My Billing LTL Flexi Classes
It is in no way connected to your Flexi / Flexi Forum Username
So I did that change a week ago, but I still hasn’t changed my name here
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This has been changed. You can now change your username in the forum under “Preferences” (find it via the little person looking icon on the top right when you click on your picture) inside the Flexi Forum (not Flexi itself) yourself. This should be much easier.
So for your forum name it does not matter what your name inside Flexi is. Just when you first sign up to the Forum it will use your Flexi name and level to create a username. Afterwards you can change that username at any time under “Settings” inside the Flexi Forum.