What's in a Chinese Name?

Ba Yan Jie

The Chinese Letters shown above are our baby's Name. The first character is for "Ba" - which is given to all of the children who enter Yueyang County SWI. The second character is for "Yan" - which generally is given depending on what time the babies came into the SWI. So all of the babies who came in roughly December 2005 to mid-January 2006 are Ba Yan. The next group have the 2nd character as "Shu" - pronounced "Sue". Yan means colorful, gorgeous. Finally, "Jie" means pure or clean. Her nickname in China would be "JieJie" - doubling the 3rd character.

Origin of Chinese Characters (Taken from about.com)

Written Chinese is not an alphabetic language. We call Chinese characters as squared characters. They seem very complicated and hard to learn. But Chinese is the most used language in the world and certainly one of the most beautiful languages.

The development of Chinese characters can be dated back to about 4,500 years as discovered at Yanghe, Shandong Province in recent years. There are about a dozen pottery wine vessels unearthed, which each have a character. Those characters are quite close to the oracle inscriptions carved by the ancients of the Shang Dynasty (16th to 11th century B. C.).

The "Ba Yan Jie" part is what is called pinyin. (Taken from wikipedia) Pinyin is a romanization and not an anglicization; that is, it uses Roman letters to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin. Hanyu Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the government in the People's Republic of China. It has also been accepted by the Government of Singapore, the Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and many other international institutions. It has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese language text into computers.

Chinese Names

So, you just met Wong Zhongyu and Fong Ying. You then say "Pleased to meet you Mr. Zhongyu and Miss Ying". You have already made your first mistake. Chinese surnames(family names) are expressed first. In this example, you have met Mister Wong and his associate Miss Fong.

After marriage, Chinese women normally retain their family name. You will not see hyphenate names such as "Chen-Ling". They do not combine the two family names and hyphenate them as is common in the west. The children will take on the fathers' family name.

(Taken from chinaunique.com)

Chinese readily take on a western first name when working with foreign firms or engaged in business where they will come in contact with Westerners. It is also common for parents to give their child a Western first name(in addition to their chinese name) at birth or in early childhood. They will take care in selecting their first name, either for themselves or for their child and will select a name with a meaning that they prefer. On occasion, you may be asked to either select a name or to help in the selection. Make sure you know he meaning of the names you recommend.
After you have worked in China or with the Chinese people, you will likely want a Chinese name as well. Ask your Chinese friends and colleagues to select the name for you. They will not usually give you a name on the spot. After significant thought, they will select a name that carries meaning and significance about you. They will describe this meaning. A helpful hint is to request in advance that the name be easy for you to pronounce, especially if you do not speak the language.