Cathay Ink › Guides › Why 艾米丽·沃森 is not a Chinese name: transliteration vs a real name
Why 艾米丽·沃森 is not a Chinese name: transliteration vs a real name
A transliteration spells the sound of a foreign name in Chinese characters; a Chinese name is a surname and a meaningful given name. What each is for, how to tell them apart, and which one to use.
Emily Watson written in Chinese is 艾米丽·沃森 (Àimǐlì Wòsēn). It is correct, you will find it in a newspaper, and no Chinese person has ever been called it. It is a transliteration: six characters chosen only to imitate the English sounds, with a dot between the names, and it reads as "a foreigner called Emily Watson". A Chinese name for the same person is 王艾美 (Wáng Àiměi): a surname that echoes Watson, a given name that echoes Emily and means "mugwort, beautiful". The two things serve different purposes, and most "translate my name" tools only give you the first.
What a transliteration is
Chinese has no alphabet, so a foreign name has to be written in characters, and the convention is to pick characters whose sounds approximate the original syllables. News agencies keep standard tables so that every paper writes Barack Obama the same way (奥巴马, Àobāmǎ). The characters are chosen to be neutral and recognisable as "transliteration characters": 艾, 米, 丽, 沃, 森, 斯, 特, 克, 尔 and a few dozen others appear over and over. Their meanings are ignored.
Three things give a transliteration away:
- Length. English names run to four, five, six characters; a Chinese name is two or three.
- The dot (·) between the given name and the surname, in the Western order.
- The characters themselves. A Chinese reader sees 斯特 and 尔 and knows before finishing that this is a foreign name.
A transliteration is the right thing when you are a public figure being written about, when a document needs your legal name rendered, or when you want to be identifiably yourself and foreign. It is the wrong thing as a name people call you by.
What a Chinese name is
A Chinese name has the structure every name in the country has: a one-character surname from the familiar set, then a given name of one or two characters with meaning. Taking one is what students, expats and people marrying into Chinese families do, and Chinese teachers hand them out on the first day of class. A good one borrows from your real name without being a copy of it.
| Transliteration | Chinese name | |
|---|---|---|
| Emily Watson | 艾米丽·沃森 | 王艾美 |
| Characters | 6 | 3 |
| Surname | none; the whole thing is a label | 王 Wáng, echoing Watson |
| Given name | none | 艾美 Àiměi: mugwort, beautiful |
| Meaning | none intended | yes, every character |
| How it reads | "a foreigner" | "a person" |
| Used for | print, documents | being called by |
How a Chinese name borrows from yours
There are three ways to carry your name across, and we propose one of each so you can choose.
By sound. The surname takes the first consonant of your family name (Watson, 王 or 汪; Miller, 米; Smith, 施 or 史). The given name takes the stressed syllables of your first name and finds characters that sound alike and mean something good: Emma becomes 艾玛 (Àimǎ) or 爱美 (Àiměi), Leo becomes 立欧 (Lìōu). This keeps the name recognisably yours.
By meaning. If your name means something (Rose, Grace, Felix "lucky", Sophia "wisdom"), the Chinese given name translates the idea rather than the sound: Grace can be 雅 (yǎ, "graceful") or 恩 (ēn, "grace, kindness"). The result sounds nothing like the original and entirely like a Chinese name.
By feel. Some people want a name with a classical, scholarly ring (李子涵, Lǐ Zǐhán) or a light modern one, and do not mind losing the sound. This is how many Chinese teachers name their students.
Which should you use?
Use a transliteration when the Chinese text is about you and must point back to your legal name: a press mention, a contract, a visa form that asks for a Chinese rendering. Use a Chinese name for everything where a person will call you by it: class, work, friends, a tattoo, a seal, a painting. If you are getting something written in calligraphy, there is a practical reason too: a transliteration is six characters wide and looks like a shop sign; a three-character name is what calligraphers have been writing for two thousand years and it fits a seal.
Questions
Can I use a transliteration as my Chinese name?
You can, and some people do, but Chinese speakers will hear it as a label rather than a name, and it will not fit on a seal or in a signature. If you like the sound of your own name, ask for a sound-first Chinese name instead: it keeps the sound in two or three characters.
Is my transliteration unique?
No. The standard transliteration tables mean every Emily gets 艾米丽. A Chinese name, by contrast, is chosen character by character and is usually unique to you.
Why do different sites give different transliterations?
Because there is more than one way to approximate a sound, and mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong use different conventions and different pronunciations (Mandarin versus Cantonese). The mainland standard, from Xinhua's name tables, is the most widely used.
Can a Chinese name keep my surname?
Only as a sound. Chinese surnames are a closed set; the convention is to pick the one that starts like yours. 王 for Watson, 李 for Lee, 马 for Martin, 麦 for McDonald.
Names and characters in this guide follow the rules we use when proposing names: common simplified characters, a surname from the Hundred Family Surnames, no awkward homophones. Where a guide says a native speaker reviewed it, the review date is above.