Now that I know that is the direction that I am going I thought wouldn't it be interesting to get on some of the Chinese Social Networks. Recently, a colleague sent me an invite to Ushi. So let me register and begin to understand a little more. Not so simple. Doing the registration had a few difficulties.
1 - All of the content was in Chinese Pictograms
2 - I need a Chinese Name to register.
3 - A Chinese Name has three or two characters
4 - A Chinese Name from a Chinese Girl from Dalian and questions some questions answered
1 - All of the content was in Chinese Pictograms
At the beginning it was not that easy to see the English language button so I had some difficulty. Luckily with Chrome, Google Translate seems to be built in and after 10 seconds a page would be translated into English. Yes !!!
2 - I need a Chinese Name to register for Ushi
So when I finally get into the registration process. I was asked for a Chinese Name or the registration process would not complete :(
A helpful friend picks a name
My first thought was ask a Chinese person I know to register me on the network because I do not even have the pictograms to enter them. My friend Joe was very helpful and a few hours, I received confirmation that my account ready to activate. During the process Joe picked a name for me 江纳什 - Jiang Nash. Solution found! :)
For a few days, I was bubbling with contentedness. I now had a Chinese Name 江纳什 and I am on the Professional Social Network Ushi! Curiosity struck me, how do you pick a name in Chinese?
A website helps choose a name
So I went and did a classic Google Search for Chinese Names and the first site was Mandarin Tools. Brilliant. You give your first name, you last name, your date of birth and one more intriguing attribute, the desired essence of your name. There is a choice of 5 essences.
1 - Personal Character and Skill
2 - Wealth and Fortune
3 - Beauty and Appearance
4 - Mind and Intelligence
5 - Strength and Power
What I learned from this process is that there seems to be three Chinese pictograms that represent a name.
[Surname] [Firstname] [Firstname]
So I went ahead to see what names would come out for me.
1 - Ma Zhi nu
Ma
Zhi - purpose, will determination
nu - exert, strive, make effort
2 - Ma Zhen nu
Ma
Zhen - precious
nu - exert, strive, make effort
3 - Meng Ji ning
Meng
Ji - excite, quickly
ning - respose, serenity, peace, peaceful
4 - Ma Jie ning
Ma
Jie - clean, purify, pure
ning - respose, serenity, peace, peaceful
5 - Mai Zhi nu
Mai
Zhi - purpose, will, determination
nu - exert, strive, make effort
Now the funny thing is, if you retry all the same criteria another time you can get different results! So there is not simply 5 variations of your name according to this tool. I am not sure how many variations there possibly could be. So a little frustrated in not really understanding how a name was picked.
Note: The website creates the name in images rather than in characters that can be copied.
So I am still left with a lack of understanding of how Chinese Names can be chosen.
3 - A Chinese Name has three or two characters
As a fan of Asian Martial Arts movies, this time I decided to watch the end of the movie with the names. As I watched the credits I noticed that some names seem to have three pictograms and others two pictograms. Now I am more confused, how many pictograms are there in a name?
4 - A Chinese Name from a Chinese Girl from Dalian and questions some questions answered
A few days later, I met with a Chinese Girl know as 'Kate' to people in Ireland and I simply had to ask about how a normal Mum and Dad go about picking a new born child's name in China. Some of Kate answered to me was familiar, there was usually three pictograms in a person's name. And I asked her about the film credits. Kate answered that newer names are starting to have only two pictograms for their names. There seems to be some reformation and simplification process happening in China with respect to the creation of names. Kate is from Dalian, China. Dalian is a city with about 6 million people in the province of Liaoning east of Beijing and close to North Korea. One question was answered.
Now how do parents go about choosing a name for a new born child.
The surname: the surname like in western European countries comes from the father. So the first of the three characters or two characters is inherited from the father family name for the child.
The firstname: the first name is made up of two characters and the modus operandi of Kate's family is that people of the same age get the same second character. I didn't fully get why they did. Like her and her cousin have the same second character in their name. The third character seemed to be the one to represent the individual. And she explained the different names and what could be usual for a boy or a girl like Liong is for Dragon and that usually be used for boys.
Choosing a name for me. Kate seemed to think that choosing a name for a foreigner was a more flexible arrangement. She was asking me do I want the Chinese name to sound like my English name Jonathan. So then the surname would be a character that sounded like Jon. Apparently this is a common surname in China. So choosing a name for me would simply a matter of sound, a deviation from the normal Chinese way to choose for their own.
This investigation required more research I feel I am slowly gaining some insight into how the name can be chosen. I want to go back to Joe and ask him why did he choose 江纳什 - Jiang Nash for me? From which ideas did he derive the name. I will stick with that name at least until I understand the principles for choosing a name. My family may need to go through a similar process for living there.
A name is precious, why we chose it, what we chose, who helps us choose it are all important. This search for understanding of my Chinese Name is just beginning...
After just posting this blog I got curious about my own name Jiang Nash, what do the three characters 江纳什 mean. And I went to my handy tool of Google Translate.
江 means 'River'
纳 means 'Satisfied'
什 means 'Even'
and put altogether are pronounced Jiang Nash!
The search goes on...
