Hello everyone, I've been studying Chinese for a bit over two years now and I think it's finally time to get a Chinese name - I'm considering going to China next year and this semester a lot of my teachers have been asking if we have Chinese names.

It would be great if you guys (especially the natives and advanced learners) could give me some feedback and tell me if my suggestions have some bad/unwanted associations or unfortunate implications. :)
Please also tell me if the characters are too obscure - I would prefer something a bit more unique than 玛丽 or 大明, but I also want people to be able to read it.

a couple names I'm considering: (very loosely based on the syllables of my Western name)
飚骊
飚灵/飚伶

As a last name I'm considering 康， 凯 or 蒉, since my actual last name starts with a K.

I think finding a good name takes time, so have one to use when you get to China but be on the look out for a better one when you're there.

I would suggest copying a Chinese person's name given name, since choosing a decent name is tough, and if you copy one it will at least be correct and if you choose an unusual one that most Chinese people hardly know they might be impressed and it obviously wont be common so no worries there also. Plus let's face it, no one in the west really has an original name so why worry about having a unique Chinese name?(just Facebook yourself and there will probably be someone with your name, at least there were loads for me and I was surprised since I thought my name was unusual).

Otherwise you will likely end up being the mirror image of some Chinese people, either with a off the wall name like menu or banana or a name that is unfashionable or weird (at least to me) like Athena or Herbert (I guess you could go with that if you like but I would say it's better to have a real name, if only because it will impress the Chinese more and help make them think you really understand Chinese culture etc.)

Also, personally, I chose a Chinese name that had a similar meaning to my real name, not based on the sound.

I've been looking too for a Chinese name for some time, and I think, just as Antimacassar, that it's difficult and it takes time ! It depends on what you expect from it. The similar sounding to your Western name makes the whole thing much more difficult, and you can also imagine a name that doesn't sound like your Western one, it was my last choice (with the help of some Chinese friends).

Anyway, you should wait that some native speakers give you some advice.

Most people will tell you to choose a frequently used family name, as 康, but not the 2 other ones. But I finally chose a not so common name, according to my friends, who told "anyway you're not Chinese, so it doesn't matter so much if your family name is a bit special"…

For the first name, maybe you should think about the character's length : 16 strokes (飚) can be long to write down, sometimes… especially in traditional characters (21 strokes)… not speaking about the 29 strokes of the traditional version 驪 of 骊 (10 strokes). But the meaning seems interesting to me !

I remember I wanted to use 灵 in my first name, and a friend told me it's a bit weird, it evokes some funeral thing, not very "normal" to a Chinese. So I explained to him, I liked the spiritual meaning of the character, just like 独, in which I liked the solitude, but he explained in China it sounds too negative for a name, whenever he understood my opinion (you can be happy when you are alone ; in Chinese, it's more an idea of peace, quiet…). So he finally found 修 for me, with some meditative and study meaning, in words as 静修. I'm happy with it, and wouldn't have found it on my own.

What not ask one of your teachers to give you a Chinese name? I'm a bit surprised you don't have one already. My experience is that teachers will give all their students Chinese names so that no English needs to be spoken in the classroom at all.

Thank you for your feedback. To clear things up, the meaning of the characters is definitely the most important part for me -- I just used my Western name very loosely as a starting point.

I was I fraid that would be the case with 灵, which is a pity since I also liked it (and I also think it looks nicer than 伶).

Hm, are the other to surnames that I mentioned really that uncommon? I know they are not in the top 100, but I figured it would be safe to go with any that is specifically listed as surname in the dictionary.

@ joshwhitson13
Well, I don't really like the idea of just being randomly assigned a name and no none of ourteachers (about half of them Chinese half of them Austrian/European) ever gave everyone Chinese names.

飚 is a very rare character. Actually, it’s not listed in the 通用规范汉字表. More usually, the variation 飙 is used instead. But then it depends on whether you love dogs so much.

Another point is that飚灵/飚伶 sound too much like 飘零.

According to Netor.com, both family names exist, so I think it can be ok. Some "surname" characters are especially common in first names, not in family names…

Anyway, as pts has written, the problem with a rare character is that people may not be sure how to read it or write it down, and you have to like spending time spelling it in Chinese or reading it wrongly written… So you should maybe find something more common… We are all the same, always looking for something original… But simplicity is a form of perfection too !

I don't know how old you are, but I have read that many quite young people in China have been given a doubled-syllable name, like Langlang, Weiwei, etc., with two different characters with the same sounding. Maybe it can give you another idea ?

Going into a completely different direction, what do you guys think of this name: 海凤.

This is very personal, I hate writing 海 which I find very difficult…

The meaning is poetic and might be suitable for a male surname… It might sound like two very near names, 海风 and 海峰, both with feng pronounced in the first tone. I don't know if it's a problem or not ?

As for me, I don't really like the construction of this surname, that is, two names with a very Western logical relationship. As in German or English, Sea-bird, Fire-dragon, Snow-tiger and so on. I am not sure (but I might be totally wrong, it's only my feeling) it is a spontaneous way of building a name for a Chinese. I mean, the meaning of a first name is generally difficult to translate, because it has a unique and complex meaning resulting of two different ideas. I suppose, it's more Chinese-like to have a name as Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (lustre + East) than this kind of composed name.

Anybody could help and confirm or not ?

海凤 is a common female name. The 凤 in 凤凰 is male, but a female in 龙凤.

There are a lot of famous and very successful 海峰’s, so it must be a very good name but doesn’t suit your criteria of finding a slightly more unique name.

By the way, 泽东 literally means conferring benefit to the east. Maybe his parents had envisioned that he will build a new China. But I suspect that the characters were chosen for the sake of 阴阳五行 where 泽 is related with water and 东 with the wood element.

I also need help with finding a Chinese name. My English name is Tom, so as a Chinese name I was recommended 汤姆。 However, I didn't like using 姆 since it means aunt, so I made it 汤木 instead.

I liked using 木 because the pronunciation was close to 姆 and the meaning of 木 is actually the same as my English last name. However, I read that 木 can also mean "stupid". Can anyone confirm if this is true, and if I should look for another name?

Damifino, I think it is effectively the current transliteration of Tom… But I wouldn't like the meaning for me !

I am not sure for 木, anyway it isn't very careful to choose a name with such possibilities… But I don't like 汤 anyway… I would choose a name for the meaning, instead.

Me , I'm just being lazy for now
and using the chinese version/ transliteration of my name

亚历山大 / 亚力

or

亚历山大大帝 ;-)
Well I am 6 foot 115kg

Last classroom teacher was calling me 亚历山大工程师

A bit of a sidebar. When I came to China with the Peace Corps, our Chinese teachers assigned us names.

My last name is Louis, so my teacher replicated the sound with 龙宇 (long2 yu3). And 宇 is the first character in astronaut - 宇航. So they decided to give me the name 龙宇航, Dragon Astronaut.

I still get shivers when I hear it in English.

My name, 艾山德, is neither very special or typically Chinese but has served me just fine in China. People usually call me 小艾 or 山德 and it's not really an issue at all. I figure as long as you don't have a name with a negative meaning it's not a big deal really.

Picking a good name is important, because it will be used A LOT.
There is one question that you should ask yourself, and that is whether you want people to know that you are a foreigner or not, by just hearing your name. Imho, there are 5 types of foreign names:

1. The sound-a-like name, that sounds like your foreign name: 约翰，阿里，玛丽，丹尼尔 etc
2. The wanna-be-cool name, that translates into something "cool": "random char"+龙 (黑龙、白龙、红龙), 猛虎，雷剑 etc
3. The pick-a-famous-name name, that's the same as some famous chinese person: 鲁迅，孔子，李小龙，李白 etc
4. The I-think-I-am-funny-name name, that's obviously a joke: 苏克敌克，阿斯活乐，草泥马
5. The sound-like-a-Chinese-name name, that sounds just like a regular Chinese name: 赵利枕，勤麒琳，陈海萍etc

Now, 1 and 2 are clearly the most popular choices. Personally I prefer 5. My chinese name is 梁伟明 which is a very typical chinese name, and it has led to many interesting and fun situations. For example, my spoken Chinese is pretty good, and unless you really try to, you can't hear that I'm a foreigner. So when people have talked to me on the phone, and I introduce myself as 梁伟明, then meet them in person and they find out I'm a 老外, they are totally dumbstruck :D

@pts, I'll bite. What's 飙 got to do with dogs (your first post on this thread)? Longwiki claims both variants mean the same.

@ 阿福
He's talking about the radicals. 飚 consists of 风 and three 火 (personally find it looks aesthetically better), whereas 飙 consists of three 犬 (radical for dog) and 风.

@ DaXia
I personally would like to go for a number 5 two which is why I'm looking for feedback.
What do you think of the character 彪? Whould that still be an obviously 'cool name'?
(I was thinking about something like 彪祺 or 彪瑞.)

Edit:
Are there really people who opt for number 4?
I mean people who actually plan to use that name in China, not some bored 16-year-old who just learned about Chinese syllables.

@Inkubus
Well, it's kind of hard for me to say. I find that 彪祺 sounds more "chinese", than 彪瑞 but then again, I like the sound of 瑞 and since I come from 瑞典, I'm a bit biased :D

Anyhow, 彪 is kind of an unusual 姓. Im sure that there are people that 姓彪 out there, but I don't think they are that many. I think it's more used as a 名.
The best thing you can do is ask around among your Chinese friends, because no matter how good our Chinese is, we are still foreigners, and don't have the same "feel" as a person born in China.

I'm happy that I never had to go through this whole name circus. When I first came to China it was to train wingchun under Duncan Leung, and I was supposed to stay at his place in a 花园. But to stay there I needed an id card with a Chinese name and it would save us a lot of trouble if it looked (on the name) that I was a member of his family, so my 师傅 Duncan （梁绍鸿）just gave me a name with his family name, 梁伟明. Problem solved :D

And yes, sadly there are foreign students that use those kind of names. I have seen quite a few "Hitlers" (希特勒), some "Fucks" （发棵），and I heard that there was one guy in my school who called himself 草泥马，but the teachers made him change it pretty quick though.

@ DaXia
Sorry to be unclear, I meant 彪瑞, 彪祺 or 彪旭 as two-syllable 名.

Choosing a 姓 is much easier in my opinion, since you have the 100 common ones to take your pick and I have several that I'm considering (吴，康，苏 and 吕 to name a couple).

To go slightly off topic, is it only in China that people like to choose foreign names? I can't say that I've met tons of foreigners, but of all the nationalities that I have met it's only the Chinese who like to have a foreign name (and so conversely for us who want 2 study/live there etc.). I mean is it just fashion, is it something to do with Chinese culture or is there a real reason why my name isn't good enough (arguments about pronunciation are disregarded since the same problem applies in any 'foreign' language)?

My guess would be that it all comes down to the different writing systems.

In smaller scales that applies to other languages too. A German person migrating to the US is at some point going to drop any ä,ü or ö they had in their orignial name or at least resign to the fact that the Americans are not gonna know how to input their name correctly in to the computer.

And there are lot's of language teacher who will use the equivalent of the pupils name in the taught language.

彪 is a very good character for a name, but 彪祺 immediately reminds me of 标奇立异.

@pts
That's exactly the kind of thing that I want to weed out. Thank you.
The other two seem okay to you?

彪瑞 and 彪旭 are both good. They are typical Chinese names. I’m sure you can find someone using these names but they are also not too common. Personally, I’d prefer 彪瑞 slightly more.

@Antimacassar,
I think that part of the reason for Chinese people choosing foreign names is that their names are not that easy to pronounce for most westerners. And even the westerners have a grasp of basic Chinese, they are still going to run into trouble with the tones.

However, a lot of people who have foreign names got them when they studied a foreign language (which was most likely English). This way they too can use 100% English in the classroom, but it also helps overcome some cultural differences between the west and China. Specifically because native speakers of English have a tendency to call people by their first names, even in business settings, which is something that just doesn't happen in China.

I think out of all my friends who are Chinese, I only call one of them by their first name. And he was my roommate in Beijing and is like a brother to me.

Chinese get English style names especially for employment .

Here in Sydney it makes a difference for how fast you get job interviews if you have an english sounding name(helps get past the HR annoyances/not get put on the bottom of the pile)
i.e a friend calling herself Loren instead of 璐 lù on her resume and email addresses

At work(a uni) we tell all the Asian postgrads to have a english name for their resumes.

About the writing of names and the accents in English, as Inkubus has written (Austrian guy, aren't you ?), the old German writing manner is frequently used in English-speaking countries. For example, Händel (German writing) is always referred to as Haendel in England, where he lived.

I think the reason for choosing a name comes from the difference between both cultures ; the more differences there are, the more you need a name to avoid communication problems. Even my very normal and international first name (Anthony) requires explanations with foreign people : place of the accent, nazalisation of the first syllable or not, pronouncing the "th" like "t" or not… those problems may get unbearable in every day life with far languages.

彪瑞 and 彪旭, I like them both ! I find it a great choice !

Actually I recently had this problem in China. I basically now use my first name, whereas everyone I know calls me by my middle name. It feels kinda false for people to use it but it does get annoying when people mispronounce it. However, I feel that it increases cultural barriers not knock them down.

OK but first of all most Chinese people don't just meet English speaking people, so it's quite possible that the English name they chose will actually be harder for a foreigner to pronounce than their own. As for foreigners choosing a Chinese name, most C. people can actually pronounce Western names quite well so I don't think pronunciation is a good enough reason to change your name.

OK but the main point is about the tones. Again many languages have tones, but if we are just talking about English speakers I guess it would be annoying for both parties.

But I really think it's also a cultural issue. For example, a thought experiment: imagine there is a rich western country that had a tonal language. I find it hard to believe that they would A) be so ready to ditch their own names and B)that we would insist on them doing so if they came to our country, yet we insist Asians do it, well at least for one exception. I'm pretty sure most of the Japanese I have met have always used their given names. (Could be majorly wrong here but...) is it just a coincidence that Japan also happens to be the most successful non-white country. Don't forget that many names in English that we now take for granted as normal names came from other languages. What I mean is that we also accept people's identity based on where they come from. If they are from a rich powerful place we are more willing to accept them, but if they are from a poor place or a place that is perceived to be inferior than we are more likely to insist they adopt a different identity. I really think that in about 50 years time as China becomes more and more powerful/influential on the world stage A) the C. people wont feel the need to have a western name and B) we will be more willing to accept their own names (maybe even knowing the tone) simply because of the difference in power relations.

OK, but back to the real world, I guess it's inevitable but kinda annoys me for some reason. Rant over :P

So, Inkubus, are you finally a 彪 ?

Problem with names like these is that companies too like them as you probably found by googling. I am named the same as a "Kids R Us" store in Shanghai it seems.

Yes, I'm 吴彪旭 now, thank you all very much for your help and advice.

And Kewt, you're right I'm indeed an 奥地利人. Where are you from?

Ok, nice name !

I'm French, but I often travel to Austria (and Germany), Salzburg and Vienna are some kind of "herzliches Heimatland" for me ;)