Names. Rarely do we get much say in our name, arriving without the power of speech, to a world with history and culture that precedes us. We are named after grandparents,celebrities,presidents, locations, flowers, and spices! Love or hate your name, it lends to your identity and personality, and shapes a bit of who you become.
The girls and I discovered a unique opportunity in our moving preparations, the privilege of choosing a Chinese name. Simply put, American names will not translate into Chinese, our alphabet and the character systems are just not compatible. (Apologies inserted here to those who found out that their beautiful Chinese tattoo translated in to something less than stellar...).
Toying with what little we know about Chinese language and culture the girls came up with a few possibilities. First choosing a surname at random, we picked "Zhāng" 張 for our little experiment. I asked each of my girls what they would like to represent in their new name. Olivia, being the type A she is, immediately responded with "Passion, Spirit and Strength!" Mia gave it a bit of thought, and was very practical choosing, “Fun, nice girl." Lastly Rosie my aspiring and wishful thinker went with "Pretty, Sparkly (.....and wait for it...) CALM”….lol??? I did not see that heading my way!
A Chinese name is composed of three characters, surname is first, and given names second. You can see how the girls Chinese names turned out below, first in Pinyin, followed by the characters and lastly the meanings of the characters. ( We are using "Pinyin" ,a phonetic means to translate the characters to learn the language.)
For Olivia: Zhāng Li Wei, 張力威 , Full of presence; charismatic, strong
For Mia: Zhāng Qiǎo Shū, 張巧淑, Artful, clever, kind and gentle
For Rosie: Zhāng Yàn Nà, 張艳娜, Colorful; Gorgeous, graceful girl
Here is glimpse of the girls, Olivia, Rosie,and Mia :)
I did find website that “translates” your name for entertainment, based upon your English name and what “essence” you wish to portray. You can give it a look~see, but I prefer the names we concocted for the girls vs the names a random generator shoots out.
You can find the generator at : http://mandarin.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=mandarin&cdn=education&tm=80&f=10&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.mandarintools.com/chinesename.html
I imagine, these will not stick, we don’t even really know how accurate they are but it was a valiant exercise in expansion. A way to help my girls start to wrap their minds around how much our life will be changing. We invite you to play along! Use the random translator, or do your own research and tell us, what is your Chinese Name? <3
