Names in China

[owenkrout]

An interesting cultural point brought up in another thread was that of whether your gal has a middle name. I did a check of my student’s names as a random sample of current practice and found that 55 of them have two character names and 63 have three character names.

 

Someone, somewhere along the process "gave" my wife a middle name. My wife tells me that traditionally, most, but not all, Chinese had a three character name. One character for the family name, and two for the given name. Her Chinese passport has her name Anglicized as Wang Chunxia, two names.

 

In my wife's case, she and her siblings where given "generation names". The first character of the given name was the same for her and all her brothers and sisters, "Chun", the generation name. The second character of the given name was different for each of them, in her case "Xia". Thereby it is easier for everyone in the extended family to discern everyone’s "place".

 

By using that system and moving the family name to the end instead of the front Someone along the line decided that her three names are therefore Chun Xia Wang. Despite the fact that she had filled out all the papers by leaving the line for "middle name" blank and filling in her first name as Chunxia.

 

Probably more than anyone wanted to know. One of the qualifications for being a college professor is that you have to be able to talk about anything for two hours whether you know anything about it or not.

[dave]

my fiances name is Ma Yan , my last name is Johnson , she says her american name is terri--so lets see when we are married her name will be terri ma johnson???????? ma being family name and yan being first---im confused

[Joseph-1]

my fiances name is Ma Yan , my last name is Johnson , she says her american name is terri--so lets see when we are married her name will be terri ma johnson???????? ma being family name and yan being first---im confused    

That is common practice in China and Japan. Qin Ling became Ling Qin for the I-129F. It about like John Smith IE Smith John in the Chinese way or

John Henry Smith would become Smith John Henry. And the Q is pronounced "Ch" so the family name is Chen. My Name is pronounced almost the same in chinese as it is in english. Joseph is Joseph-a.

Do you need an aspirin?

[Guest bob61]

I did a check of my student’s names as a random sample of current practice and found that 55 of them have two character names and 63 have three character names.

In my sample of three: A gal that I dated for a bit several years ago was named Xiaoyan and went by Yan. My Chinese ex-wife, Runbin, was called Bin by her family, but went by a self-inflicted American name over here. My fiance, Zhengyu, goes by Yu. Unfortunately, Yu is a word that I cannot pronounce, no matter how much I try.

 

As for the names getting switched around in immigration documents, my last name is Owen. Did they switch your name, Owen, when you went to China?

 

I, too, am a professor, but had to lose the beard when I married my Chinese ex-wife. Are you teaching college classes over there? If so, what is it like?

[Joseph-1]

I did a check of my student’s names as a random sample of current practice and found that 55 of them have two character names and 63 have three character names.

In my sample of three: A gal that I dated for a bit several years ago was named Xiaoyan and went by Yan. My Chinese ex-wife, Runbin, was called Bin by her family, but went by a self-inflicted American name over here. My fiance, Zhengyu, goes by Yu. Unfortunately, Yu is a word that I cannot pronounce, no matter how much I try.

 

As for the names getting switched around in immigration documents, my last name is Owen. Did they switch your name, Owen, when you went to China?

 

I, too, am a professor, but had to lose the beard when I married my Chinese ex-wife. Are you teaching college classes over there? If so, what is it like?

Yu is my Father in Laws name,but Im sure it isnt pronounced like "YOU".

Im no professor,but I lost the mutton chops. You get more kisses that way.

Chinese girls dont kiss much though do they?

[Guest bob61]

Yu is my Father in Laws name,but Im sure it isnt pronounced like "YOU".

To pronounce Yu, you muster up the lowest G-flat sound your throat can handle - down there near your stomach. Pretend you are Johnny Cash and say "yEEeeEE" in a fourth tone with that lowest, lowest of G-flats. If you can do that, then let's see if you can include it in a sentence, talking like an east coaster: "Yo! Yu! Hows yous doin' uh?" That's my problem: I can pronounce the name, but I have never heard anyone else talk to her with her name in the conversation, so I cannot figure out how on Earth it gets used in a conversation. And I am certain that even a Chinese would find it impossible to correctly pronounce the name in an English conversation.

 

So everyone asks me her name and give them the long name just to avoid funny looks. :-)