The difficulties of translating your name into Chinese | Fili’s World

27 Nov, 2006 in Asia-Israel connections, Chinese Studies by Fili
Tags: Asia-Israel connections, Chinese Studies

The difficulties of translating your name into Chinese

Chinese can be tough for many reasons, but the most frustrating issue has to be that of what should be a very simple task - translating a western name.

My Chinese name has been an issue since day one. First, there was the translation of my Hebrew name to something easily pronounceable in English. My friends took care of that, giving me the nick name of fiLi, which is a combination of my first and last name. Although I later found out that fiLi actually means things in English (a female horse, for example), it was still easy to use - most foreigners that I met abroad could pick it up immediately.

Problem with Chinese started from day one in my Chinese class as my Taiwanese Chinese teacher told me that my name sounds like the Chinese sound for Fillet (steak). I tried out all the "Get a Chinese name" websites and discussed this issue with my Taiwanese friends for long while, trying to figure out what might be a decent name to use. There was no escaping the Fei-li sound, but finally there was somesort of agreement as to what my name should be. I thought that would be the end of it. This is what I came out :

Thing was, and still is, when I use this name with people from China the first response I get is a weird look suggesting that it sounds bad. When my China-origin Chinese teacher heard the name she hesitated for a while before saying "Oh, well, what matters is that somebody who loves you gave it to you". When I tried to understand what the matter was, she replied saying that it’s not that bad. That made me worry. When I met the Chinese students studying Hebrew in Israel and told them my name they said that it sounds like the Chinese slang for someone who doesn’t treat women nicely, and they still joke about that every once in a while. So, the Chinese name that I get from someone in Taiwan might have a different meaning in China or for a western-born-Chinese. That really convinced me that I need to find a very common Chinese name used in both China and Taiwan that I like instead of trying to make my Hebrew/English name translate into Chinese. I’m still working on that.

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There’s an Israeli forum for Chinese language and culture on Tapuz that I sometimes read, and it’s funny to see that 25% of the messages posted there by new comers are from Israelis who are trying to get help in translating their names to Chinese. It’s hard explaining to someone who doesn’t study Chinese why this is an extremely difficult task. To give an example for a misunderstanding, here’s my translation of an email forwarded to me by a friend in response to the Chinese tattoo mistakes in Israel :

The girl :

"Hello,

I saw on the website that you’re helping people install Chinese on their Windows 2000. I can’t install the Chinese!

I’ve been looking for someone who can write Chinese for a very long time!My boyfriend and I want to tattoo our names in Chinese.

I would be grateful if you can help me…"

The friend:

"Hey,

I’m a bit confused. I don’t understand the connection between Windows 2000 Chinese installation and tattooing your name in Chinese. You do know that having Chinese in your computer won’t help you with your name unless you can read/write and speak Chinese, right? can you explain to me what it is exactly that you’re trying to do?"

The girl:

"Oh, damn! I don’t know! I’m looking for a way to translate my name to Chinese but I still haven’t found how!

Hmmm… I thought that if my computer would support Chinese then I would be able to use Word Translation to translate the name from English. Isn’t this possible?"

Oh dear.

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10 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

David on Formosa | November 27th, 2006 at 4:58 pm #

I think it is a difficult thing for someone starting out studying Chinese to know what is an appropriate name.

My first Chinese teacher gave me a name which I later realised was not the best choice. There is a fairly standard translation of David which is OK, but he chose a surname which is not only very rare, but many people in Taiwan and China cannot read it correctly.

I later chose a name by myself when I had a bit more knowledge of the language. It really had no relationship to my English name. It is just like a Chinese person’s name. I don’t think it is really necessary to try and create an awkward “translation” of an English (or Hebrew!) name when there are thousands of new names that you could choose from.
fiLi | November 27th, 2006 at 8:55 pm #

Exactly. I just need to listen to names more and find something I like.

So what did you end up with? I’m curious…
David on Formosa | November 29th, 2006 at 5:12 pm #

The name I chose myself was 魏明智. A good thing about it is that it is written the same way in both traditional and simplified characters.
Rishi | March 27th, 2007 at 2:34 pm #

cool………..
mike dunn | August 27th, 2008 at 4:16 am #

Muy padre! Hi Fili! you are the BEST. Thanks again,Mike
cat | August 28th, 2008 at 9:38 am #

Well, I believe with the progress of your Chinese now you must have already come to understand what the wrong is. fili sounds just like 非礼, and 斐理 of course has the same pronunciation. I just don’t know why your Chinese teacher in Taiwan did not realize this problem, since the word 非礼 came from classical Chinese and is a common word either in mainland China or in Taiwan. For sure she did not mean to deceive you. I guess she was merely simpleminded then.
fiLi | August 28th, 2008 at 3:28 pm #

cat - yeah, I’m aware of the problem, though I don’t have any other good alternatives, and this name doesn’t bother too many people. Some just think it’s funny in a foreigner stupidity kind of way. :S
vk | August 28th, 2008 at 8:53 pm #

They don’t really pronounce in the same way for斐 is 3rd tone. And I do like the siginificance of 斐＆理, separately and collectively.
fiLi | August 28th, 2008 at 9:33 pm #

vk -
cat | August 29th, 2008 at 9:57 pm #

Besides its meaning the Chinese also put emphasis on the pronunciation of one’s name in order to make it easyly speak as well as goodly sound. In the case of the name 斐理, both characters are 3rd tone, in Chinese traditional phonological term, they are both in 仄声 and this fact makes them hard to speak out together. In fact, in Chinese traditionally people like using 腓力 to translate the western name Phillip, for example, the father of Alexander the Great. I think 安腓力 is a fair one, except for the fact that 腓力 is also used as the name of the steak 腓力牛排， which you have mentioned in the article

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