A Chinese name that isn't too Chinese

[imightbeaspy]

Me and DH have compromised - DCs get to have his surname and he gets to pick middle names and I get first names.

Surname is an unusual Scottish name ,but is a Mac.....
Middle name is Teàrlag if a girl and Teàrlach if a boy

I was born and grew up in Hong Kong and I only moved to the UK 8 years ago.
I count myself as Scottish - Hong Konger.
I speak cantonese (with friends me and my brother often spoke cantonese when we were younger and now and still will speak it to each other - we code switch most of the time). My parents still live out there.

So I want a chinese name for incoming DC - but not too chinese-y. (if that makes sence) they will probably have flaming red hair and be very pale and so I feel it would be odd to call them Chenguang or something.

So a Chinese name that isn't too chinese:

I've come up with:

Girls

Lan
Fei
Jia
Lin

Boys

Bao
Wei
Bai
Yanlin

Opinions/any suggestions ??

OP I'm a bit confused by your heritage. Do you mean both you and your brother are ethnically Chinese and you've been adopted by white Glaswegian parents who bought you over to live in UK? I'm also confused by your need for a Chinese name that isn't too Chinese. Do you want names that work for both cultures? In which case the choice is limited, I'm also confused why you wouldn't want a name which is obviously Chinese as your choice of second name is totally unpronounceable by anyone not fluent in Gaelic.

Sorry mumzy if it is a tad confusing.

Me and DBro are not ethnically Chinese.

My parents are both Glaswegians - my dad moved over to HK when he was about 7 (his dads work) came back to UK for Uni met my mum and then moved back out to HK with her.
Both me and my brother were born and raised in HK - my dad had gone to a british school and had always hated it so insisted that we went to a proper HK school and made sure we spoke cantonese at least part of time at home with them (my dad learnt some while at school and my mum is a linguist so picked it up) we went to a mainly cantonese school and so are fluent in both reading and writting and speaking HK-cantonese. But as we got older and knew cantonese my parents switched to speaking english at home to us. but me and my brother will still code switch each other (it alternates between cantonese and some english and english and some cantonese) - but we both do speak fluent cantonese.

• this is why I have a chinese name that I am known by and my actual name in Western the opposite to a lot of my chinese-heritage HK friends.

I only came to the UK 8 years ago. (and if DH work would speed up and transfer his job I would go back in a second )

Tearlag was DHs granny's name (hence Tearlach if a boy) -

I don't want it to be too chinese-y as though I (and my brother) think of ourselves as HongKongers with Scottish heritage. and speak cantonese (which I will speak to DCs) I am conscience that DCs (based on me and DH) wouldn't look at all chinese and feel it would be odd for them to have a completely chinesey name. (both me and DBro have struggled with very odd looks when out and about and using cantonese - it is what we spoke as children o each other and haven't stopped and also struggled with our chinese names given too use as school children that have stuck - when you have a Chinese name that you use - I will introduce myself by it and it is what everyone knows me as and speak cantonese then have flaming red hair and are as pale as anything people get very confused)

Hope that makes more sense.

If it helps, I went to a school in the UK that had masses of Chinese/HK students. The girls whose Chinese names no one had any trouble with were Lin, Xiao, Ping, Darwen...

My HK BIL is called Ho Kuen.

How about "Lai" pronounced like 'lye' for a girl, its a girl's name and it means flower or something, another name is "Sze" also for a girl pronounced "zee".
I've another girlfriend called "Akiko" pronounced "akeeko" but thats japanese! but i love it.

thanks OP that's cleared up my confusion. I think you should go with a name which works in both cultures so your dc won't have to spend the rest of their lives explaining why they have an obviously chinese name but which at the same time acknowledges your chinese influences.

You can use Mei but add another character to differentiate your dd from your friend's eg. Mei Ling (beauty & grace) , Mei Wan (beautiful cloud), Mei Ying (beautiful & intelligent) Mei Chun (beautiful spring) Mei Lan (beautiful orchid).

An American friend of mine who adopted a Chinese girl called her Gau-mi ( may not have spelled that right), otherwise known as Mimi.

I have Eurasian friends who have names like May-Lynn and Sue-Lynn followed by Dutch sounding surnames. V pretty.

I also grew up in HK as an expat (still visit a few times a year) and we gave our daughter the middle name Mei for the same reasons. I am now expecting no2 and am considering the following which are HK Canto (these are all girls names primarily):

Bo - Precious
Sum - Heart
San - Pearl
Huan - Happiness
Jia - Beautiful
Lei - flower bud.
Zi - graceful

I think Jia could be a lovely name on it's own.

We want all of our children to have middle names that have HK connections - but there are other names that work - Victoria (harbour!), Stanley (fort/market), etc!

Our yoga instructor has a granddaughter called Jia and it is lovely.

Lin is lovely. Simple and elegant and crosses the cultures well.

See I'd go with Charlotte or Charlie seeing as you're not actually so keen on the Gaelic names and put the Chinese one as a middle name

Oh, they're the English version of them btw, for anyone who's wandering why i would randomly throw those names in, rofl

We live in China and our son was born here so we gave him Yifan as a middle name - not a typical chinese name but recognisable here and it's the chinese version of a member of our family who we wanted to name him after.

Our next child (eventually!!) will be a chinese adopted daughter and we already have a name for her that is "China" but in my husband's language and we're going to have a shortening that is an more western name- best of both worlds we hope!

Not suggesting either of those but maybe you could try something similar? write a list of family or other names that you like and get someone to china-fy them for you.

I also know girls who were born here called China (more than one!) and other random chinese words that the parents just liked the sound of.

i think it's lovely to recognise your time in HK!

I taught a lovely girl from Hong Kong she was Lei-an [sp?] but her English name was Ryan!Her brother was something like Na-fen and was Nathaniel in English.

tabulah Huh? DH is set on those names (and likes the fact the gaelic speaking part of his family would be in DCs name) also Charlote and Charles - I don't like, aren't identifiable with Scotland and actually aren't us.
And we want a Chinese first name.

Thank you all

Lian
Mei
Jia
Bo
Jun
Kai

Out of the ones said

I knew a Meilin. I think it was all one word but perhaps it wasn't. I do think it's gorgeous though.

my nextdoor neighbour is from HK and her name is Kam. Her DC are Ranait and Cailin, but that maybe because her husband is from S Ireland. They are not names I know, so maybe a mix of Irish and HK?

Fair enough, it was just if he wanted to name the LO after his granny, it was a way of doing it without using a name you didn't seem overly keen on :)

btw Ranait is the girl and Cailin is the boy, and beautiful they are too. Stunning mix IMO

Lui - Louis

Miu Miu - Mimi

Yee Ha - I love this one

OK DH is HK Chinese.
he is Ben (apparently somehow a good strong chinese name although this has never been explained but I don't speak cantonese so don't know)
DS2 has Gm maiden name as middle name Li so could work as a first name.
GM first name is Pui (she pronoounces it poiy)

Fei, Lin or Jia seem good for the girls because they are easy to say and kind of like Faye, Lynn and Jia could be short for Georgia so it wont stand out too much as people feeling confused why the overly chinese name, but with those spellings they do look chinese so you get to keep the chinese connection and i think those are all quite nice
the boys ones you have listed all would stand out as quite unusual and chinese i think. is kai a chinese name because that fits in with uk names and i saw someone said sam, that is really nice too. i dont really know any chinese names myself to suggest any! but those ones i do think would work well

I love Lily and especially Tiger Lily.

Like Mei for a girl, love Lulu.

Can Lan also mean blue (in Mandarin)? So could that be for a boy too?

Like Tien for a girl. Actually Bo for a boy would be fine too.

I guess it is how similar it is to English sounds. I would avoid anything like 'zh'.

Could you use Kai for a girl or a boy?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_%28name%29

"In Chinese, Kai is a given name which can be one of several characters. The most common Cantonese name is "繼" with five radicals for silkworms on sieve, meaning "unceasing (like silk)" or "following intimately (like silk)" or "continual (like silk)". The most common Mandarin name, "凱"， meaning "victory" or "triumphant"."

I love the name Hua (meaning flower) but I know that most English people would struggle to pronounce it because when I first saw it written in Pin Yin Roman script I thought it was Who-a and not wah as it is but even writing it now can't really convey how lovely it sounds!

What about Lok meaning joy (Joy is an English name, rather unusual these days but maybe making more of comeback). But Lok sounds more like a boys name.

Tai - as in 'great, exrtreme'. For a boy. That sounds very English.

I got some ideas from this yahoo post, very interesting and helpful but they are talking about a character in a book not naming a baby so might not all be suitable.

uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100125113947AALiPbH

Good luck and congratulations.

Sorry just re-read and Hua is Mandarin so no idea what it means or how it is pronounced in Cantonese, probably a bit of a red herring, and when I said 'Joy' was an English name it was because I thought you were Chinese and might not know it was an English name! apologies! Just re-read back to start! Good luck with your name, hope you find a really great one.