Chinese Name Help

Discussion in 'Author Discussions' started by FruitPunchSamurai-G, Dec 8, 2021.

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  1. FruitPunchSamurai-G

    FruitPunchSamurai-G Well-Known Member

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    I was writing a xianxia inspired book a while back but stopped after a couple chapters because was taking so long to come up with names for characters lol. Wanted to start back up.

    So is there a Site that helps with typical Chinese Names and with inputting an English meaning for a name and getting a Chinese name?
     
  2. Dahna

    Dahna (-, – )…zzzZZZ

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    Pleco with bundle packages.
    Google translate
    Baidu online English-Chinese dictionary
    yellowbridge
    Any online English-Chinese dictionary

    For naming, it's better if you know some basic Chinese. For pick surname, you can pick one in the list below:
    https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Chinese_surnames
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021
  3. frustratedguy109

    frustratedguy109 Well-Known Member

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    Don't use the surnames Wu or Wei. Wu is a homonym for 无 (without, not, etc) and Wei is a near homonym for 伪 (false). It's okay if you're just making names that sound nice but mean nothing. Since you're trying to make up names that mean something, you'll wind up with names like Without Virtue.
     
  4. Suijin

    Suijin Blood God [Medic]

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    吴 未
    he can use wu or wei. just depends on the character really. i use 粟 instead of 苏. no one cares.
     
  5. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    This should be a non-problem. There are tons of surnames that are written as Wu and Wei, and not all of them are going to be homonyms in this sense. Non Chinese writers aren't going to spell out their character names in Chinese, so it's not as if the reader is going to be able to tell that there's a problem. The bigger problem is that any made up name has the chance of looking very unnatural in Chinese, but that's pretty much unavoidable given the situation. Besides, there are plenty of Chinese names that look or sound unnatural in Chinese as well!