The Chinese teacher of one of our users sent in this suggestion:

“字可立得”，顾名思义，汉字可以立马获得、掌握。

Sounds like Skritter: Zìkělìdé, the meaning is nice, and the characters are all really easy. What do y'all think?

I like it. I think the Teacher deserves a free Skritter shirt . . . with the new Chinese name on it.

Sure, but perhaps without the 得？3 characters is better than 4, and I think it's superfluous?

Could you get away with just 字可?

James

Grammatically, it sounds archaic. The modern way of saying it is 立得字.

Then, another problem is that 字 [zì] sounds very similar to 痔 [zhì], and it’s just tempting to interpret [zìkělìdé] as “Piles can be caused by standing.”

My girlfriend says 字立得 sounds nice and has the meaning you're looking for. I agree with her, the four character name is awkward to say.

For the beginners on the forum, what is the meaning?

Meaning is something like

Get characters straight away.

I like it, but I'm not Chinese so don't feel qualified to say. It sounds quite nice as a four character phrase in my opinion, despite sounding a bit phonetic.

Grammatically, it sounds archaic. The modern way of saying it is 立得字.

Then, another problem is that 字 [zì] sounds very similar to 痔 [zhì], and it’s just tempting to interpret [zìkělìdé] as “Piles can be caused by standing.”
您一定是南方人或者您的老师是南方人，因为听起来你们“zh-z"不分。

“立得字”听起来商业味太浓，感觉像是一种洗涤用品，而且跟skritter发音不太像；相对而言，“字立得”更有文化味道一些。但是“字可立得”虽然不太上口，但是四字短语听起来更凝练。我想使用它的人都是跟汉语有关系的，既然要学汉语就应该融入这种文化（至少在学习期间，这就是为什么很多人学汉语学得很慢的根由），而不是还站在自己的文化里指点江山。

@三郎
So you think 字可立得 is 凝练! The definition given by nicku for 凝练 is “concise”. But from the number of suggestions submitted to the forum to condense it, obviously, many of us don’t agree.

Putting the character 字 before the verb 得 conforms to the grammar of classical Chinese. It is 更有文化味道 because it is classical? I’m not saying that classical Chinese is bad or anything, but this just doesn’t fit with the style of Skritter. A classical name suggests a solemn quiet institution with several hundred years of history. But Skritter is not yet 2 years old and is run by a group of energetic and vibrant youngsters. Skritter uses modern technology to help the learning of Chinese and it does deserve a modern name.

Talking about culture 文化, was there a May Fourth Movement that promoted the use of 白话文? In the initial learning stage, we want to immerse in the modern China and learn the modern Chinese as quickly as possible. We want to 我手写我口，and it is in this culture that resulted in the birth of the Communist Party of China and later the modern China.

You mentioned that ““立得字”听起来商业味太浓，感觉像是一种洗涤用品”. This is irrational. Yet, this is just why many companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to naming specialists for choosing a Chinese Name. A naming specialist often weeds out hundreds of candidate names by attaching random associations to the names to make sure that the final chosen name won’t associate with any unpleasant meaning, no matter how irrational that association can be. This is because she knows that it is entirely up to the readers to interpret the meaning of a name. In the process of choosing a name, she will also consult the opinions of the Feng Shui masters and do dialect research. Dialect research is important because only a portion of native Chinese can speak standard Putonghua. And in the present case, this is especially important. The clients of Skritter are laowais who can barely speak Putonghua. How can you expect them to properly differentiate between a ‘zi’ and a ‘zhi’?

Naming is a specialist profession, so this job is better left to the experts.

"Naming is a specialist profession, so this job is better left to the experts."

Skritter is a great name. I doubt they went to an expert for it.

"How can you expect them to properly differentiate between a ‘zi’ and a ‘zhi’?"

I hardly think a new user is going to confuse 字 for 痔, and I imagine they'd probably be reading it rather than listening to it. If you're worried about people reading it incorrectly and being misunderstood, I suspect that's likely to be a problem whichever name gets chosen. I had a teacher from Nanjing who used to confuse z / zh, but you can normally understand the meaning from the context, so I don't think this is an issue.

I do agree that 字可立得 (hmm not too easy to type, that one, all the suggestions are wrong) sounds a bit traditional, especially compared to the made-up Skritter, although I quite like that personally. It's also fun to say it quickly, your tongue bounces up and down. Not sure it's too long either, compare 曼彻斯特 for Manchester.

三郎：我不明白你为什么说我们不应该站在自己的文化。我觉得差不多每个汉语学生都想更多了解中国的文化。要不然他们为什么学习汉语呢？你的意思是不是如果Skritter的中文名字是一个四字短语，那么这样的名字会给人更多文化的感觉？看上去pts也同意你的意见，但是他认为因为现在中国的文化有现代化的部分，所以Skritter需要更现代化的中文名字。我个人比较喜欢字可立得这个名字，但是如果太长的话，我们可以既使用字可立得的名字，又缩写为jw1066的字可吧。

首先我申明一下，我没有任何冒犯任何人的意思，如果无意中已经让您不舒服，我道歉。
其实我也同意pts的分析阐述，其实我们说的是一回事。语言和文化的现代化与传统本身的核心是不冲突的（这一点看看潮流的往复就明白了），比如说“麦当劳”，听起来很像，也很上口，这是现代化，但是意思也有关系，“要想有麦子吃就应当劳动”（我不知道McDonald的本义是不是如此）；与此相比，“肯德基”就是个失败的译名，尽管它挺流行的。
最好的译名应该是音和意都很相近，而且又跟译入语没有文化等方面的冲突。比如说narcissus，现代译为“纳西索斯”，如果只看字面，没有任何意思，但是潘光旦先生译为“奈煞西施”或者“影恋”，相对而言，后者就更贴切了。
“字可立得”与skritter在发音上比较接近，而且意思也符合其宗旨，如果嫌长不易上口，可简化为jw1066所言的“字可”或者“字得”（听起来像“自得”，自己获得，或者自得其乐之意）。
好了，我的信口胡说到此为止，forget it。

wow... You guys take this way too seriously: I play Skritter because it's about as much fun as a video game. Honestly. I am not even joking.

三郎：你没有给我得罪或者不舒服，事实上我很喜欢听到你和pts的意见，你们的中文都比我好，我可以向你们学习一点。我至今也没有考虑到麦当劳的意思，觉得很有趣。我也比较喜欢你的“字得”的想法。起一个好的名字不是容易的事，我认为nick应该不介意我们讨论一下，顺便练习中文：)我也说完了算了吧

icecream - for me I just like thinking about these things, not taking it too seriously. Agree with you on Skritter being a great name btw and being fun.

We also had this discussion a year ago here:

http://www.skritter.cn/forum/topic?id=5691231&comments=14

I liked all the suggestions this time round, so that's why I'm chattering away about it :P Plus it's interesting to read 三郎 and pts minor essays on the subject.

I asked my wife who is from Taiwan and at first she did not know which characters I meant (due to my pronounciation). Then when I told her what the characters meant she said it was fine. She did not say it was great, but fine.

The four characters are supposed to sound a bit like Skritter right?

Thanks for all your input guys! 字得 or 字可 both sound good to me, too. It would likely be easier for our graphic design to have just two characters. 字可 has simpler characters and sounds more like Skritter, but 字得 may (?) be easier to understand?

我来 Skritter 只是想学一点中文，完全没有其他的目的。而且也实在腾不出时间。所以平常在论坛，除了对几个我极关心的问题有回应之外，也绝少发言。只是有感于微软Bing 的中文名字「必应」 给人冠以各种莫名的花名而耿耿于怀。对那背后的「无理性」更深恶痛绝。一时间便认真起来。真不好意思。在此谢过。


References:
必应 - 兵营 http://bbs.tech.163.com/bbs/tech02/135854318.html
必应 - 避孕 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_59e64c8e0100dvlu.html

甲：你可以说一下 Skritter 对你的帮助吗？
乙：字可。 (For learning characters, it’s good.)
甲：还有其他方面的吗？
乙：。。。

甲：你可以说一下 Skritter 对你的帮助吗？
乙：字可。 (For learning characters, it’s good.)
甲：还有其他方面的吗？
乙：字得。（The Chinese characters,I have gotten)
甲：你觉得在skritter里学得怎么样？
乙：自得。（getting by myself;finding joy in my own way)