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Choosing a Chinese Name

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Best Resources for Selecting a Chinese Name

Selecting a name in Chinese is much more complicated than selecting a name in English and families in China and Taiwan put a great deal of thought into selecting their children's names, often hireing experts to help.  Yet it is surprisingly difficult to find English materials about the process of selecting a Chinese name.

This lens will also introduce some basic considerations in selecting a Chinese name and serve as a springboard for further exploration by highlighting the best resources on the Web and in print to help you select the perfect Chinese name for your baby or for yourself.   It is a valuable resource for multicultural families, parents adopting Chinese babies, and English-speaking students of Chinese.   Please take a moment to add any additional resources that you know of and help rank those items already listed.

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Naming Multicultural Babies

This lens is a spin off of my Naming Multicultural Babies lens. Updates to the parent list are noted here.
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Best Chinese Name Books

Chosen by me voted on and added to by you

Disagree with this list? Change the ranking or add your own favorite Chinese name book. Only the top five will appear.

created by ChouDoufu

Random Thoughts

From the Non-Chinese Partner in Bicultural Family

Selecting a name in Chinese is much more complicated than selecting a name in English. For the most part, English speakers select a name from among a few hundred (at most a few thousand if the parents are more adventurous) common names. The historic meanings of English names are generally of secondary importance to what the parents personally find euphonious and perhaps their desire to honor another family member.

While a name's euphony is important to Chinese speakers, so to are the meanings of the characters used, the radicals in the character, the time and date of birth, the Chinese astrological sign of the child and his family members, undesirable homophones the name could be confused with when spoken, the masculinity/femininity of the name, and a variety of other considerations.

Unlike in America, in Taiwan it is very important to select a unique name for your child. It is very rare in Taiwan to meet someone else with the same given name (but very common to meet someone with the same surname; much more common than in the U.S.). While in China, single-character given names are common, in Taiwan two-character names are strongly preferred.

Given the thousands of characters available to choose from in creating a name and the number of possible two-character combinations, it is easy to select a name that few others will have, but difficult to decide upon a single name. It is very common for families to seek out the services of one or more experts in helping them with this process.

It is surprisingly difficult to find English materials about the process of selecting a Chinese name. I could find only two commonly-recommend books on Amazon and almost no well-researched and detailed Web sites. The following is one of the few good Web sites that I could find on the topic. Read it if you are interested in learning more: http://www.chinasprout.com/html/naming.html

Best Chinese Name Resources On-line

Please submit your suggestions or rank the sites already listed.

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NameTheBaby.net

An index of chinese baby names1 point

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Get a Chinese Name

Get your own Chinese name based on your English na more...0 points

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Chinese Name and English Name

Includes over 2000 popular English names and their more...0 points

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Chinese name - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most noticeably, a Chinese name is written with th more...0 points

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Behind the Name: Chinese Names

Note that depending on the Chinese characters used more...0 points

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Reddo Chinese Translation - English to Chinese Name Translation

A free online tool that provides the Chinese chara more...0 points

The Role of Astrology in Chinese Name Selection

The Chinese horoscope is a cycle based upon years rather than months. Each Chinese lunar year has an animal associated with it. For example, I wrote this on December 2006, which falls in the year of the dog.

While I do not believe that a name determines one's fate, enough people in Taiwan do that having someone born in the year of the tiger with a pig radical in one of their name's characters might be as awkward in Chinese as naming your child "Harry Johnson" in English.

I'm not sure if that bit about the tiger and pig is true; I just made it up. That's my point. I have no ability to judge a Chinese name's laugh factor, pleasantness, or uniqueness. So I had no problem letting an expert put together a list of "good" names for my wife and I to consider when deciding a name for our son.

As Xiaoning Wang writes (quoting Edward Hume) in his popular article Good Meaning Characters Do Not Always Make Good Chinese Names: "'Never make up a Chinese name without consulting Chinese friends!' Maybe your Chinese friends cannot give your child a great name, but they definitely know if you are giving your child an appropriate Chinese name. Just like an Italian or an Irish knows what a typical Italian and Irish name should be."

I would add: even native speakers of Chinese often consult experts when selecting an appropriate name for their children. Simply selecting a name that sounds nice and has a cool meaning is not enough. The Internet makes it easier than ever to contact native speaker for advice in this matter. Take advantage of it.

Naming a Forest Dog

An Example of the Role of Astrology in Chinese Name Selection

One of the most common surnames in Chinese is "Lin", the character for which are associated with "forest" or "woods". Lins who have a child born in a dog year, have to take care to counteract the potential negative astrological implications.

As the dog is a domesticated animal that thrives best with people and requires shelter from people, it is an issue when someone with the surname Lin is born in the year of the Dog. Lin, as stated above, means "forest." While most people don't think of a surname's meaning in normal circumstances, when selecting an auspicious name, it's various meanings and symbology are scrutinized very carefully.

Have a dog running around loose in the forest is not an auspicious image. It implies being lost or perhaps a feral condition (wild, dangerous, uncivilized). Either way, not something that most Chinese parents would want their child associated with.

The solution is to select a names whose characters contain countervailing radicals. For example, the name "Yijie" is a good name for a child born in the year of the dog as each character contains the "person" radical. If you look at the image above, on the far right is a character made of two strokes, looking something like the "carrot" symbol on your keyboard (above the "6", or like an exponential symbol, or like an editor mark for insertion, whatever). The character is a very stylized depiction of a person standing with legs apart.

A radical's shape will change to fit the character it is used with to maintain an aesthetic and practical square-based shape. The two characters in the middle are the person radical as they look in the characters themselves, which are pictured on the far left of the image.

The person tames/domestics and cares for the dog. Therefore the symbology of a Lin born in the Year of the Dog is neutralized by the person radical found in both characters of his name.

Top Recommendations for the Beginning Chinese Language Student

I'm one of those people that wastes a lot of money buying more materials than I could ever reasonably use. The good thing for you, however, is that I've compared many different materials. Below are my recommendations for beginning student of Mandarin Chinese. The materials I chose are especially helpful for self-study.

Even better, you can add your suggestions and, if you used any of the below-listed materials, you can vote them up or down the list.

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Hanyu Pinyin Workbook by Jia-Fang Eubanks

Hanyu Pinyin Workbook by Jia-Fang Eubanks

This workbook provides an affordable way for the b more...0 points

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Rosetta Stone Chinese Level 1 & 2 Win/Mac Personal Edition

Rosetta Stone Chinese Level 1 & 2 Win/Mac Personal Edition

I'm using this software to brush up on my Chinese now more...0 points

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Chinese Primer: The Pinyin (3 Volume Set) by Ta-tuan Ch'en

Chinese Primer: The Pinyin (3 Volume Set) by Ta-tuan Ch'en

This is the textbook I used when I studied Chinese more...0 points

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Besta S701 Interactive English-Chinese Handwriting Dictionary

Besta S701 Interactive English-Chinese Handwriting Dictionary

The rolls royce of Chinese electronic dictionaries. more...0 points

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Chinese <-> English <-> Chinese Electronic dictionary BESTA CD-616

Chinese <-> English <-> Chinese Electronic dictionary BESTA CD-616

If you want a more basic and affordable model, check more...0 points

created by ChouDoufu

Reader Feedback

  • BiYanJiao!! Feb 18, 2011 @ 8:06 pm | delete
    I am in Chinese currently (8th grade, Chinese 1) and my name is Bi Yan Jiao. Yan means I like to write, and Jiao means feminine, I think. Idk why I picked feminine, but it sounds cool. :) lol. Ni shi huan Justin Bieber ma? Wo bu shi huan Justin Bieber(:
  • 123ysaolivia Dec 8, 2010 @ 10:36 pm | delete
    This is an interesting lens. I am thinking now what should the name I choose if I am a Chinese.
    Graphic Design | Social Media
  • Jimmie Aug 23, 2008 @ 6:39 am | delete
    I have a funny story. An American friend chose the last name Wu -- common one, no problem. But for his name he chose wen ming (culture).
    Get it? Wu wenming. He couldn't understand why people laughed when he shared his name. :-)
  • ChouDoufu Jan 9, 2012 @ 4:35 am | delete
    Funny! For my readers who don't know Chinese, "Wu" also sounds like the word for "no" or "lack of", so his name sounds like "no culture" or uncultured. Always good to run a name past native speakers.
  • sudever Jul 6, 2007 @ 7:06 am | delete
    Hi I'm the groupmaster for
    http://www.squidoo.com/groups/chinese
    Your lens would be nice addition to this group,
    you are cordially invited to join!
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