Is writing Chinese Names hard??

[UnknownSaint171]

I've seen some English Authors successfully write some pretty good Chinese imitations (With Chinese names) and I really like it when you see Novels like these.

It feels more of a legit and real cultivation novel when reading it with Chinese names but when it's English it's just awkward for me half of the time. If you've seen Cultivation originals on Webnovel, then you've probably seen them. 'Richard successfully cultivated the dragon phoenix pill furnace' doesn't sound right to me.

Writing Chinese names sounds very challenging for me. I have no idea how English writers do it! Their names can be Feng Zong but Xiao Feng or later Feng Zongfeng,etc, it's all confusing at the end.

I am going to try to learn a bit of the language, at least get an understanding of name addressing, and hierarchy. Names of places. It doesn't have to be that deep knowledge or knowing how to speak it. (What I've seen from English writers)

But how do you guys do it? Is there a trick to it?
Honestly, after reading many CNs, it doesn't seem that hard but still...

 

[PeacefulMyst]

yi fang zhen ren, Zhou dong feng. Dong feng ren. Xio yichen. Xio dong feng.

Just combine a few and bam
if you get some of the basic Chinese names in your head, you can make somewhat believable ones yourself. (Although most may not be culture accurate, but who the fuck cares)

 

[Anon2024]

Well you have to first realize that Chinese people (historically) name their childreb sometimes in a strange way and sometimes by fortune.

I’ve had relatives named “dog” when translated from Chinese to English, but that name isn’t offensive to all those born in the culture. Some might find it offensive.

I wrote something which was plagiarized by webnovel about a character named Dong Chen and one of the characters was Qin Zheng which is translated to get behind of, roughly.
the reason those names aren’t translated I think is because the translator knows what it really means.

 

[UnknownSaint171]

yi fang zhen ren, Zhou dong feng. Dong feng ren. Xio yichen. Xio dong feng.

Just combine a few and bam
if you get some of the basic Chinese names in your head, you can make somewhat believable ones yourself. (Although most may not be culture accurate, but who the fuck cares)

Lol true, English Readers would not know if it was done right. But it'd be embarrassing if someone whose familiar with the language reads it!

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

I've seen some English Authors successfully write some pretty good Chinese imitations (With Chinese names) and I really like it when you see Novels like these.

It feels more of a legit and real cultivation novel when reading it with Chinese names but when it's English it's just awkward for me half of the time. If you've seen Cultivation originals on Webnovel, then you've probably seen them. 'Richard successfully cultivated the dragon phoenix pill furnace' doesn't sound right to me.

Writing Chinese names sounds very challenging for me. I have no idea how English writers do it! Their names can be Feng Zong but Xiao Feng or later Feng Zongfeng,etc, it's all confusing at the end.

I am going to try to learn a bit of the language, at least get an understanding of name addressing, and hierarchy. Names of places. It doesn't have to be that deep knowledge or knowing how to speak it. (What I've seen from English writers)

But how do you guys do it? Is there a trick to it?

Noz

 

[K5Rakitan]

Copy and paste

 

[Ai-chan]

I've seen some English Authors successfully write some pretty good Chinese imitations (With Chinese names) and I really like it when you see Novels like these.

It feels more of a legit and real cultivation novel when reading it with Chinese names but when it's English it's just awkward for me half of the time. If you've seen Cultivation originals on Webnovel, then you've probably seen them. 'Richard successfully cultivated the dragon phoenix pill furnace' doesn't sound right to me.

Writing Chinese names sounds very challenging for me. I have no idea how English writers do it! Their names can be Feng Zong but Xiao Feng or later Feng Zongfeng,etc, it's all confusing at the end.

I am going to try to learn a bit of the language, at least get an understanding of name addressing, and hierarchy. Names of places. It doesn't have to be that deep knowledge or knowing how to speak it. (What I've seen from English writers)

But how do you guys do it? Is there a trick to it?
Honestly, after reading many CNs, it doesn't seem that hard but still...

You need to understand that Chinese names typically split into:
1. The name you're registered as
2. The name relatives call you/names people give you
3. The name you want people to call you

A person can be registered as Shu Jiling. Relatives would call the person Xiao Ling (Little Ling) or Han Ling (Violent Ling), or even completely different name such as Ni Shu (Mud Rat) or names that sound similar to their given name but is written with a different character. Then the person themselves may wish to be called something else either based on their own name (Xuan Ling) or something else that somewhat resemble their own name (Grace Shu) where Grace is what people call her and Shu is their family name.

In many cases, you can mix and match as 'Chinese' is actually a mixture of several different ethnic group, instead of the Han that is often considered the 'pure Chinese'. These different ethnic groups speak their own language instead of Mandarin, which is a northern Chinese language forced on the southerners. So unless you totally screw up your Chinese names, most people won't bother commenting. Just be sure you educate yourself on the meaning of the name.

 

[Marunikyu]

Writing Chinese names is unbelievably hard. You can't just copy some random names from other novels or some wiki. You must read over 9000 hours of trashy Chinese novels, then read a good one, God & Devil World, then learn mandarin, then learn cantonese, fujonese and THEN you can write Chinese names. Good luck

 

[BearlyAlive]

Just name all males Long Dong

 

[Sabruness]

OP is right that cultivation novels and etc sound really weird with westernized names. That's what makes MTL so funny sometimes is it ends up spitting out the weirdest sounding names because of the nature of Chinese language and translation intricacies. That's why i prefer novels of that sort to just stick with the chinese names.

Though it can be annoying when novels have lots of names that are very similar even when transliterated into english letters or when names are obviously different in chinese but when transliterated into english letters translate into the exact same name.

 

[T.K._Paradox]

Just name all males Long Dong

And his eternal rival who is also his twin.

Long Wang.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

My chinese language professor said that you could smash anything together and it would be fine.

 

[UnknownSaint171]

Copy and paste

Writing Chinese names is unbelievably hard. You can't just copy some random names from other novels or some wiki. You must read over 9000 hours of trashy Chinese novels, then read a good one, God & Devil World, then learn mandarin, then learn cantonese, fujonese and THEN you can write Chinese names. Good luck

There is a Chinese names generator online and it seems like the names have no issues? I'm considering using it..

My chinese language professor said that you could smash anything together and it would be fine.

The problem is honorifics or ways of addressing in writing Cultivation novels. Like Long Qing could be QingQing or Qing'er. I've seen 'Feng' be added to the end of names out of nowhere and be Long Qingfeng. When is it appropriate to write it so it doesn't awkward? No matter how many CNs I've read I can't figure that out.
Anyways, thanks! I feel a bit more confident now

 

[doravg]

For my novel set in China, Signs of the times, I used a Chinese name generator that explained the names, so, I wouldn't end up with something meaning Horse Dung by accident, or something along those lines. It is not that hard writing them, pronouncing them correctly is the hard part.

 

[Deleted member 70892]

I've seen some English Authors successfully write some pretty good Chinese imitations (With Chinese names) and I really like it when you see Novels like these.

It feels more of a legit and real cultivation novel when reading it with Chinese names but when it's English it's just awkward for me half of the time. If you've seen Cultivation originals on Webnovel, then you've probably seen them. 'Richard successfully cultivated the dragon phoenix pill furnace' doesn't sound right to me.

Writing Chinese names sounds very challenging for me. I have no idea how English writers do it! Their names can be Feng Zong but Xiao Feng or later Feng Zongfeng,etc, it's all confusing at the end.

I am going to try to learn a bit of the language, at least get an understanding of name addressing, and hierarchy. Names of places. It doesn't have to be that deep knowledge or knowing how to speak it. (What I've seen from English writers)

But how do you guys do it? Is there a trick to it?
Honestly, after reading many CNs, it doesn't seem that hard but still...

Ching cheng han ji
Can't touch me at all
Kitchen in the dungeon
I swear I'm gonna bang Paul-

Ok, it's not a way.

 

[aimless]

Writing Chinese names is unbelievably hard. You can't just copy some random names from other novels or some wiki. You must read over 9000 hours of trashy Chinese novels, then read a good one, God & Devil World, then learn mandarin, then learn cantonese, fujonese and THEN you can write Chinese names. Good luck

D-did you just call God and Devil World good?

 

[Deleted member 57675]

For my novel set in China, Signs of the times, I used a Chinese name generator that explained the names, so, I wouldn't end up with something meaning Horse Dung by accident, or something along those lines. It is not that hard writing them, pronouncing them correctly is the hard part.

This is why i google chinese baby names. I try research for important characters as much as I can.

 

[Ruyi]

chinese names?

there are entire sites in chinese with lists of them. you just have to google "[insert surname here] + BOY/GIRL name + [style]"
very convenient.

• for surnames china has historically kept track of the 100 most common ones which you can see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Family_Surnames
• BOY/GIRL name = 男/女 名字
• STYLE = ancient (古风), modern (现代), cold & domineering (冷酷霸气), wuxia (武侠), scholarly (书生), etc etc (whatever you can think of)

so like if i want a cold/domineering ancient chinese name in an ancient setting i would google something like "古风 名字 冷酷霸气 男" and boom, click results. you can look up individual characters in the names to see their meanings.

alternatively, make up your own names by taking inspiration from chinese poetry, idioms, sayings, etc. chinese is a very lyrical language so you can taking existing phrases and break them up into names.

 

[Marunikyu]

D-did you just call God and Devil World good?

Beyond the author forgetting all about most secondary characters and most other similar mistakes and the huge amount of repetition... It's absolutely amazing.

 

[UnknownSaint171]

For my novel set in China, Signs of the times, I used a Chinese name generator that explained the names, so, I wouldn't end up with something meaning Horse Dung by accident, or something along those lines. It is not that hard writing them, pronouncing them correctly is the hard part.

Thank you, it looks like I'll be using name generators then!

I think writing a Chinese-like Novels is possible, if these English writers can be successful with it, why can't I? Lol