Sunday, June 5, 2011

Chinese people, English names

You already know where to get yourself a Chinese name. But if you have a common English name, there might already be a Chinese equivalent of it. Below are the Chinese versions of some of the common English names:

Jack: 杰克 (Jié kè)

Martin: 马丁 (Mǎ dīng)

Ian: 伊恩 (Yī ēn)

Mark: 马克 (Mǎ kè)

Lisa: 丽莎 (Lì shā)

Colin/Colleen: 柯林 (Kē lín)

Dan: (Dān)

David: 大卫 (Dà wèi)

Bill: 比尔 (Bǐ er)

Tom: 汤姆 (Tāng mǔ)

Sara/Sarah: 莎拉 (Shā lā)

Jeff: 杰夫 (Jié fū)

Ben: (Běn)

Jess: 杰斯 (Jié sī)

Andy: 安迪 (Ān dí)


Just like the Chinese people like to give others Chinese names, they like to get English names for themselves as well. But some of them tend to pick very strange names, so strange that there is even a book about it. Apple, Sprite, Cook, Fish, Dinner are some of the strange ones I know (for some reason, all of them have something to do with food). Do you know any strange names? Please share.

Here is an interesting video on Chinese people’s English names. Do you remember Sexy Beijing?

4 comments:

  1. I know a Chinese guy whose English name is Hannibal.
    Not as werid as Dinner, but stil not the first I would pick if I was the one to choose the name...

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  2. I think my favorite is Kē lín

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  3. Very interesting... I have my English name, I was trying to find one, which sounds close to my Chinese name. I agree, the world is getting smaller and smaller.

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  4. Smacker is totally my favorite.

    - northcountrygirl

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