Batgung - chinese names

Grandparents naming our baby

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:22:53 +0000

Hi, stumbled on this forum by chance today so hope someone can help me!

My wife and I are expecting our first child in a few months, we live in the UK and I am BBC (parents live here) whilst she was brought up in HK (where her parents still live). The problem is that my parents (dad...) are heavily traditional Cantonese-chinese, whereas hers are not at all (they are from Beijing/Shanghai originally).

So on the subject of names, we have started thinking about English and Chinese names already although we don't know if it is a boy or girl yet. I spoke to my mum today and she mentioned that traditionally the grandparents choose the baby's chinese name, which I had no idea of. Fine, except my wife has strong ideas about what names she likes and in particular she hates the usual cantonese type names that mean prosperous, strong, success, etc (including making fun of my own!). In addition she does not get on that well with my dad because of his traditional outlook (the wedding preparations got difficult at times...). Her view is that he is stuck in the 70s when he came over to the UK and no HK parents are like that any more. Therefore I have 2 problems - how to persuade her to this and what if my dad does not pick any names we like.

Anyway I haven't raised the topic with her yet and have no idea how to do this without upsetting her unnecessarily. I do want her to be happy about our baby but I also realise that it is a mark of respect to let the grandparents choose (as apparently happend with me and my siblings when we were born). My dad has even commented to my mum that if we don't let him choose, then don't expect to bring the baby back home to them!! (although we live about 3 hours away)

I really feel in a difficult position and unable to resolve this to keep all happy. Regarding my first problem, I'm thinking of saying to my wife that I heard from my mum that this is the traditional way and that I feel it is important to respect that. No doubt she will refuse but I have to convince her it is my desire to do that and not just my dad's. The second problem on what if we don't like any of the names is that I could suggest that we have also thought of some names and what does he think of them. Alternatively can he think of some more names if we don't like the first set. However it is likely he will still be really unhappy if we don't end up picking one of his.

I'd be keen to hear from anyone who has similar experience and advice on how to approach this.

Understand Chinese names

mrb — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 01:00:00 +0000

When I first arrived in Hong Kong I'd regularly make mistakes with peoples' Chinese names. Here's the Batgung primer to help you do better ...

Chinese names

Most Chinese names consist of three Chinese characters, eg you've probably heard of the famous businessman Li Ka Shing (李嘉誠). The main difference from Western names is that the surname (family name) comes first, then the two-character given-name. So the right way to address him is as 'Mr Li', or 'Ka Shing' if you are already a good friend of his.

Common mistakes would be to address him as:

'Dear Mr Shing,', thinking that surname comes last, or
'Dear Li,', thinking that given-name comes first, or
'Dear Ka,', knowing that given-name follows surname, but thinking of 'Shing' as a Western 'middle-name' that is not used in a greeting. The two given-name characters should be used together.

Don't expect everyone you meet to use a three-character Chinese name though, as you'll find plenty of exceptions. In Hong Kong, many people take an English given-name at an early age. Some only use it when dealing with foreigners, while others use it to the extent that their Chinese given-name is only known by their family. If they use an English given-name they will follow the 'surname last' convention, eg Li Ka Shing's sons are usually referred to by their English names, Victor Li and Richard Li.

The use of English given-names among Chinese people in Asia is strongest in Hong Kong. In Singapore for example, almost all Chinese people just use their Chinese given-name.

Another approach is to use the initials of the given-name, followed by the surname, eg 'K S Li'. This seems most common among middle-aged men - I guess they made the choice before taking an English name became fashionable. If you'll be working with them regularly, you'll call them by their initials, eg 'K S'.

In South-East Asia, you'll find many Chinese men are called by their surname, using it like a given name. So if you call them 'Mr Li', you'll be told to 'just call me Li'.

Finally, even when people are using their Chinese names, there are variations on the three-character rule. First there are some two-character Chinese surnames, such as 'Au Yeung' and 'Sze To'. Then in Mainland China it's not unusual for people to have a single-character given-name.

If it seems a complicated business working out what to call people, it's not really that bad. If you are introduced to someone by their Chinese name, the simplest way to respond is simply to repeat Mr / Miss and their surname, 'Hello Mr Li', and wait to be corrected from there. eg 'Just call me Victor'. If there's no correction, just carry on using Mr Li. It never hurts to be a little more formal in first meetings than you would be in say the UK or the US.

Chinese titles

The examples given above assume you are dealing with a Chinese person in an English-language business setting. If you are living in Hong Kong it's also worth knowing some of the basic Chinese forms of titles, to make your life a little easier.

Where the Western norm is to use people's given names even on a first meeting, a Chinese person is more likely to use the surname plus a title. The confucian ideas of the importance of rank in the family & society probably have a part to play in this, but there's also the practical need to identify people clearly. It's commonly quoted that there are only 100 Chinese surnames. There are more than that, but the number of surnames you'll meet is still a very small number. eg the list of the 200 most common surnames covered 96% of the 174,500 people listed in a 1990 survey. So if you're having a gossip and refer to a 'Mr Wong', there's a good chance the listener will have several Mr Wong's in mind. A title helps pinpoint exactly which Mr Wong you mean...

The more formal titles follow surnames. If we assume a person's surname is 'Wong', you might hear them described as:

Chinese	English	Notes
Wong Sin Saang	Mr Wong	The shortened form 'Wong Saang' is also common.
Wong Siu Je	Miss Wong	Meant to refer to an unmarried lady, but it also implies youth. For this reason on a first meeting most people use 'siu je' to address a lady, even if they think she is married. Better to be on the safe side with a bit of flattery.
Wong Gwoo Leung	Miss Wong	More formal - used to address older ladies. 'Older' is around 50+, but if you are in any doubt, it is safer to start with 'Siu Je' and let yourself be corrected!
Wong Taai Taai	Mrs Wong	Often shortened to 'Wong Taai'. In the previous two examples, the surname is the lady's mainden name. In this case the husband's surname is used. That can lead to some confusion where you'll hear a lady apparently addressed by two different names, eg 'Wong Siu Je' at work and 'Li Taai' by her friends, ie Miss Wong but Mrs Li. It's common for women to continue to use their unmarried 'Siu je' title in business after marrying, to avoid confusion by changing names.
Wong Ging Lay	Manager Wong	If you are meeting managers in mainland China, it's common to have them introduced in English as 'Manager' then their surname, instead of using 'Mr' / 'Miss'.
Wong Si Fu	Expert Wong	Si Fu means expert, but it is commonly used to mean 'Engineer'. So if your office light/water/electricity has problems, someone will call for a 'Si Fu' to fix it.

There are some common adaptations of given-names too:

Ah-Shing		You'll hear a lot of people called Ah-something. It's a shortened, familiar form of their given name, made by combining 'Ah' and the second character of their given-name.
Shing-Je	Elder sister Shing
Shing-Goh	Elder brother Shing	These two are respectful ways of referring to people, and are formed by adding -Je or -Goh to the second character of their given name. Older staff in the office are often referred to this way, especially older support staff such as cleaners and messengers.

Chinese names and your computer

If you'll need to use English-language software (eg a contact manager package), to record Chinese names, there are several conventions you can follow. I've used different approaches over the years, including typing the whole name 'Li Ka Shing' in the 'last-name' field, or putting 'Li' in the 'first name' and 'Ka Shing' in 'last name'. It means on the screen the names look to be in the right order, but then you get letters generated from overseas colleagues that are addressed to 'Dear blank', or 'Dear Mr Ka Shing'.

The approach I've ended up using is to hyphenate the given-name and type that as the 'first-name', ie 'Ka-Shing', and put the surname 'Li' in the 'last-name' field.

Also a quick reminder that if you are ever creating forms to be used in Asia that collect people's names, asking for 'first name' and 'last name' will cause lots of confusion. It is much clearer to ask for their 'given name', and 'family name'

Other info

Here are a couple of pages I used for background information about Chinese surnames:

If you have any mistakes to share that you've made, or mistakes people make with your Chinese name that annoy you, please let us know.

MrB

What's in a name?

mrb — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 01:00:00 +0000

If having a baby is difficult, sometimes choosing their name seems even harder. And when you've got two cultures & languages in the mix, things get even more complicated.

Choosing the English names for our two daughters has been my job, with MrsB holding the power of veto. The first time around, before we knew the baby's sex, I was suggesting "Huw" if it was a boy. It's a friend's name, and has a link to Wales where I'm from. "No!" says MrsB, "any Chinese person that hears you call his name will think you're swearing at him". Lucky it was a girl...

On the Chinese side, I carelessly suggested the baby could have MrsB's surname, since my Chinese surname doesn't have any great family history attached (in fact it stretches all the way back to 1989, when colleagues at my first job here decided I needed a Chinese name). "What? And have people think he's illegitemate?". Oops, wrong again.

I've also been to blame for some of the delays in choosing Chinese names. I'm embarrased to say that "Too hard to write" has been one of my guidelines for names to be avoided. Then with my limited Cantonese vocabulary, some choices conjure up bizarre images as I guess what she's saying. Despite MrsB's "Don't be stupid, it doesn't sound anything like that", those names have been dropped too.

I did question the choice of MissB Snr's Chinese name. Unlike English names, Chinese given names are made out of regular words, so hers literally the two characters "happy" and "child". I thought she'd feel odd about this when she's say 50 years old, but MrsB assures me it's ok. MissB Jr's names have also caused us a few headaches. I'd decided early on that I liked Ann as a name. Ann it was for several months as the bump grew, till a relative pointed out that when a name has a single syllable, Cantonese speakers add "Ah-" to the front. We decided that we didn't want the blame for giving her a stutter from hearing Ah-Ann, so Ann was struck from the list.

For her Chinese name, MrsB had a couple of ideas before the baby was born, but one was dropped soon after. The chosen character "had too many mouths in, and MissB is already noisy enough" !! (The character for "mouth" appears as a part of many other more complicated Chinese characters.) I only found out the final choice yesterday, when MrsB returned from the registry office with the birth certificate. There were still two choices when she left the house, so I'm still not sure how the final decision was reached.

After writing this, a flash of inspiration: Something that irritates me in the playgrounds is local Mums calling their children "baby" when they are already three or four. I've just realised it probably means they haven't been able to choose a name yet!

MrB