What's in a (Chinese) Name

[Randy W]

from the SCMP

 

If the traditional characters aren't displaying properly, in simplified characters, her name is 贺锦丽.

 

or

 

She is also one of the few US politicians with no Chinese heritage to have an official Chinese name, instead of a mere phonetic transliteration. In traditional characters it is R�\ – pronounced He Jinli in Mandarin and Ho Gam-lai in Cantonese, the latter having a similar sound to “Kamala”.

 

 

What’s in a name? For Kamala Harris, maybe an edge with some Asian-American voters

• The Democratic vice-presidential nominee is one of the few US politicians not of Chinese heritage to have a Chinese name that she chose for herself
• By law, candidates names’ must be translated into Chinese in some areas of the US – but often based on phonetics rather than meaning

Kamala Harris, right, and Julie D. Soo pictured together at an event in 2004 following Harris’ first win for the office of San Francisco's district attorney. Photo: Julie D. Soo

 

Much of the Chinese-language media both in the US and elsewhere, however, use a purely phonetic transliteration of her name – Kamala Halisi (卡玛拉 哈里斯).

 

“Because the ballots in San Francisco were in English, Spanish and Chinese back then. I said, ‘Kamala, you should get a really good Chinese name because the registrar often just dishes out transliterated names for the ballot that are meaningless and just based on phonetics’,” Soo said in an interview with This Week In Asia.

A good name, Soo reasoned, could also help Harris get some Chinese media coverage – and avoid the possibility that a randomly assigned transliterated name might mean something unfortunate in Chinese.

 

The first character he chose, R,(贺s) means “congratulate” or “successful”; \ (锦s) refers to “brocade” or a work of embroidery; and (丽s) means “beautiful” or “magnificent”.