What is the difference between a “so called”
Chinese name and a translated Chinese name?
A traditional Chinese surname (family or last name) will normally be one Chinese character,
rarely 2 Chinese characters. A typical Chinese given name can be one or 2 Chinese characters.
As an example, my name Chen Ching Yee, “Chen” is my surname (family or last name). It
is represented with one Chinese character. “Ching Yee” is my given name. It
is represented with two Chinese characters.
Some web sites offer
a “so called” Chinese name for their customers. They typically will shorten the surname (family
or last name) to one syllable in order to give a single Chinese character to represent the surname (family or last name).
As an example, for George Washington, although “Washington” has 3 syllables, they would shorten it to just
the “Wa” or the first syllable. And that is the character they will give you for your surname
(family or last name). “George” being two characters, they may or may not give you two Chinese
characters.
At ChingsChinese.com, we use a translated
(transliterated) Chinese name. When westerners first arrived in China, their names were translated (transliterated)
by using a Chinese character for each syllable in a name. As an example, Marco Polo, there would be 2 characters
for the surname (family or last name) “Polo” as well as 2 characters for the given name “Marco”.
In keeping with the long-standing tradition of translating (transliterating)
a name into Chinese, here at ChingsChinese.com, we follow the same accurate method for translating a Chinese name.
As in the example above, George Washington, we will give 3 characters for the surname “Washington” and
2 for the given name “George”. A total of five Chinese characters.
