sooyindotcom

I drafted the below post quite some time ago but didn’t have time to fine tune it till now. However, from then till now, I’ve also discovered a few new things from my mom about the selection of Chinese names that differs from what I read in the English books, hence I was abit hesitant about publishing this post as it’s more likely that the Chinese one is correct whenever there are differences.

However, it feels like such a waste to delete everything… …so please take this with a pinch of salt. I’ve added an asterisk after statements that differ between the English book that I read and the Chinese one that my mom read and you can scroll to the bottom of the post to see my additional comments.

*********************************************************************

Therein lies the headache for parents who don’t read or write in Chinese…

Luckily, hubby and I found a couple of books from MPH that are pretty useful for bananas like us… …so I’ll list them down (plus some websites) at the end of the post for those of you who are interested (ok la, hubby is less of a banana compared to me…at least he can read some Chinese words, I’m completely useless!).

Hubby’s family does not have any ‘generation’ names that we need to follow, so that leaves us free to choose both the second and third character of baby’s Chinese name (of course, that means more combinations and permutations as well!). FYI, for those who don’t know, generation names are names where one character has already been pre-selected by the clan association of the family for different generations, so in addition to the surname, that leaves the person with one free character to select for his/her own unique name. My dad’s family has a generation name, so all his brothers and himself have the same second name…although I think it was probably set by his grandfather. And it only applies to the males in their family.

After reading the books that we bought, I came to the conclusion that choosing a Chinese name is very much ‘art’ plus ’science’. I thought I’d just briefly cover the ’science’ part here for the benefit of those who are interested. The reason why I call it ’science’ is because logically, the process feels like a simple matter of elimination:

1. Firstly, we need to consider the elements (Earth, Fire, Water, Wood & Metal) within the Chinese name. What I understand from the book is that there are several combination of elements that are favourable vs. not favourable, but on top of that, you will need to see your baby’s actual birth date to see which elements are missing - I suppose that’s where the Bazi (the ‘art’ part) comes in.

There are some combination of elements that are considered favourable…examples below:

Gold Earth Fire

Wood Fire Fire

Water Water Wood

Fire Earth Gold

Earth Gold Water

…and from there, you can therefore narrow down the possibilities since your baby’s surname, and hence, the element, is already fixed.

Now, how do we know what’s the element of the Chinese character? Well, according to one book, it’s based on the Hanyu Pinyin, and are categorized as follows…

Gold/Metal elements are words beginning with c, q, r, s, x or z

Wood elements are words beginning with g or k

Water elements are words beginning with b, f, h, m or p

Fire elements are words beginning with d, j, l, n, t or z

Earth elements are words beginning with a, w, y, e or o

(yes, ‘z’ appears twice according to the book)

…which makes it pretty easy, doesn’t it? [* - see the end of the post]

Why are the five elements so important? In Feng Shui and Bazi, we learn about the destructive and productive cycles of the five elements whereby in the destructive cycle, Fire destroys Metal which destroys Wood which destroys Earth which destroys Water which in turn destroys Fire (Fire melts Metal, Metal chops Wood whose roots digs into the Earth which retains Water and Water can put out Fire)…and in the productive cycle, Fire produces Earth which produces Metal which produces Water which produces Wood which in turn produces Fire. Hence, like in most things, names included, we would want a good balance of the elements.

2. Next, there’s the yin and yang of names to consider. Chinese characters with odd number of strokes are considered yang, while those with even number of strokes are considered yin. The combination of yin-yang should be any of the following:

Yang Yang Yin

Yin Yin Yang

Yang Yin Yin

Yin Yang Yang

Yin Yang

Yang Yin

Again, since the surname is fixed, you can then strike out which combination is no longer valid.

By combining step 1 and 2 above, I can then shortlist the words that I like that also matches the number of strokes needed to meet the yin-yang criteria.

3. The next step is to count the total strokes in the names that you’ve shortlisted. The entire name given is called zong ge, which has certain meanings depending on the number of strokes. For example, a name consisting of 33 strokes means ‘very confident’, 81 strokes means ‘related to success’ (for goodness sake, if you’re sending your kid to a Chinese school, please don’t pick a name that adds up to 81 strokes… ). Generally, there’s a list of an ‘ideal’ number of strokes that you can refer to, although certain numbers are not favourable for women. [** - see the end of the post]

Again, this helps to narrow down the field.

Now, that’s basically the ’science’ part of it.

What do I consider the ‘art’ part?

1. The name has to sound nice. The tones and sounds should sound harmonious and pleasant to hear, and not too hard to pronounce, and remember to test it out in all the dialects that you know! Also, you wouldn’t want a boyish sounding name for a girl and vice versa even though the meaning may be really nice.

2. It should be easy to remember. Of course we don’t want to select a name that is too common, but neither do we want a name that no one can remember either just for the sake of it being special (and this goes for English names as well!).

3. Some people look at the aesthetics of the name when it’s written out - does it look balanced, ie. if the first two characters consists of 4 or 5 strokes and the last character consists of a complicated, say…12…the name will look kinda bottom-heavy, right?

4. Building in the birth date and time, ie. the Bazi part. This is not so easy…when I was studying Bazi, we (the students) were often told that studying a person’s Bazi is like looking at art. You have to be able to interpret the elements and see which elements the person is lacking in, which is strong, which is weak. I don’t know how else to explain it and since I never really got the hang of it (I think it must be due the logical, maths-based part of my mind!), I think it’s still best to leave this part to an expert. Narrow down your selection of names to the ones that you like, wait for your baby to be born, then pass the birth date and time details to the sifu with your shortlisted names and hope that one of the names in the list gets selected after all your hard work!

5. Some books also recommend that the name consists of characters befitting the year your baby’s born in. For example, those born in the year of the dragon should consider having water or fish in their names (I think these are called radicals in Chinese), and avoiding characters that consist of earth, wood or rice fields as this implies that the dragon is grounded. Sounds very arty doesn’t it?

6. Of course, the name has to have a nice meaning, ie. refined! No point of it sounding nice but the meaning is something really crass, for example, Qianhua - which apparently means a naked craving for wealth according to one book! Luckily, in the Chinese language, many characters have similar pronunciations, so it’s not too hard to substitute one word for another.

These are a few of the things that I can think of. If you’re in the midst of searching for books to help you select your baby’s name, here are the ones we bought:

1. What’s In A Chinese Name, by Lin Shan (RM29.50 from Times)
2. Best Chinese Names, Your Guide to Auspicious Names, by Liu Xiaoyan and translated by Wu Jingyyu (RM23.00 from Borders if I remember correctly)
3. Choosing Auspicious Chinese Names, by Evelyn Lip (RM34.85 from Times)

The final book on the list is the one I found most useful, and everything I’ve written above on the elements, yin-yang and number of strokes were based on this book.

As for website, these two websites are pretty useful if you don’t want to buy a Chinese dictionary:
1. http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html
2. http://www.chinalanguage.com/dictionaries/ccdict/

*********************************************************************

Based on the Chinese book that my mom has been referring to:

*: The element of the word is determined based on the number of strokes, not the hanyu pinyin.

**: You know how Chinese words have been simplified over the years? Well, the strokes have to be counted based on the old way of writing, not the simplified way (jian ti zi). For example, the simplest form of my hubby’s surname has 6 strokes, the older form has 12 strokes, but the original way of writing it has 18 strokes in total! It’s important not to get this (the counting of strokes) wrong, as the total number of strokes has a meaning of it’s own…and some (especially those ending with 4 like 34, 44, 54…) have truly awful meanings! Also, for the surname, you have to add ‘1′ to the total number of strokes to make up the tian ge (the Heavenly character), and the additional one stroke is counted as part of the total number of strokes - this is contrary to the English book I read which doesn’t include the additional one stroke.

I don’t know if it’s psychological, but I’ve had friends and relatives whose luck actually changed after they visited a sifu and were told to change their names. For most of them, it was just a change in the Chinese character whereby the pronunciation of their name in English and Chinese still remained the same, but the number of strokes, element combination, etc. now differs, and their luck did take a turn for the better.

However, the Chinese book also says that a name is ‘activated’ by usage. Hence, unless you go to a Chinese school, or the English pronunciation of your Chinese name is exactly the same as the Chinese pronunciation, it’s unlikely that you’ll feel the ‘full impact’ of your name, be it good or bad.

All in all, I do think that it’s nice if your baby can start her or his life with a good name if you can find one, but there’s no reason to get too hung-up over getting a perfect name either. After all…

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

So, there you go! If you’re in the midst of searching for names for your newborn, I hope you found this write-up interesting!