Deciphering Chinese name

Boidhre · **#21**

EdLee wrote:

Bantari wrote:

I really find that interesting.

Yes, it is quite interesting.
I wonder if there is a specific branch of linguistics where they study the etymology of names ? ...

I don't know if there's a specific branch but between here and my father-in-law's home there are multiple books on the etymology of Irish first names, surnames and placenames. It's definitely a specialty in language studies (it gets very, very complex in European countries that have been invaded multiple times due to a particular word fragment having many possible origins and I imagine Asian names of all types get similarly complicated).

Bill Spight · **#22**

Bantari wrote:

By the way - I assume somebody here is Chinese or speaks Chinese. Out of curiosity - is it always hard to tell what is the first and what the last name of in that language? In all the other languages I have ever tried, in pretty much 100% of the cases it is quite obvious what is the first and what the last name. Take 'Joaz Banbeck' for example...

In New Mexico I knew a fellow named Calvin Dieter. He said that a German friend of his told him that his name really should be Dieter Calvin.

shogun1234 · **#23**

DrStraw wrote:

shogun1234 wrote:

Bantari wrote:

...

However, what I wondered about was more if there are any other ways to tell first names from last names.
...

In most of cases the last name contains only one character and it can be looked up in the list of common surnames. The rest two characters are the first name. So in the case of `Wei Keng Ho', the first name is Wei Keng, the last name is Ho.

There is Double-barrelled name, but not common as the example described above in Taiwan (Don't know the current situation in China.) With this case, the first few (usually two or three) characters generally be the last name, the rest are the first name.

The characters here indicate Chinese character.

But isn't Wei also a single character? Based on what you say why isn't Wei the family name and Keng Ho the given name?

The assumption is based on the written order is correct, indicating the name `Wei Keng Ho' is consisted of first name (Wei Keng) and last name (Ho) in the correct order.

It's possible `Wei' could be the surname because the character Wei in one of its written form ie `魏' can also be used as the last name. But in the original post it is mentioned that customer was doing business with the poster, so I assume that person understands English and probably knows the correct order of the name in English (first name + last name). If this is not the case, then perhaps asking that person to write down his name in Chinese is the only way to know his surname.

Deciphering Chinese name

Who is online