Writing of Chinese Names in English

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi All

The  other  weekend  I  discussed   with  Berthe  Ford  the  convention  for   writing  Chinese names  in English

All Chinese  names  consist of   :

a)   Surname  - just  one  character  / word *   -   which is  universally written  first ( not  last as  in English),  thus   WANG  Xisan    (  not   Xisan  WANG )

( *There  are  a  very  few   surnames   which are   two   words  e.g.  Ou-Yang )

b)   Given  name(s) which  are  usually    two   characters,  but  sometimes  one  or  sometimes even  - rarely -   three  characters

The  question  was   whether the    given  names   should  be   written  as  "one  word"  or  separately

e.g.  Zhou  Le   Yuan   or   Zhou  Leyuan  ?  Wang  Xi San  or  Wang Xisan ?

Berthe  told  me that the  universal  convention  in the  ICSBS is      to  write the   given names as   "one  word"  i.e.   Zhou Leyuan  not  Zhou  Le  Yuan

I agree  this  convention,   which is  why  I used  it  in  my data base

HOWEVER : there  are a  very  few  rare  cases  where, by   writing the  given names  as one  word   it's  not  immediately obvious  what the    two  separate  parts   are,  unless  one has a   detailed   knowledge  of  Pin   Yin  spelling.   I'm  trying to  think  of   one   such  example  among  artist  names  ........  but   after a   quick    check of  my  data base  no  obvious   example    jumps  up  ( but  bear  in mind that  I  do  understand the  Pinyin  spelling rules )

But   an  obvious   example  - although  not a  person's  name  -  would  be  Xi An ( the   city )   Xi 西  =  West +  An  =  Peace  安 ,  which as  one  word  would  be   written  Xian   ( "Xian" :   先 =   first  ，仙 =   immortal  being   ， 县  =  county  ...  several   different   characters ) 

But  in this  case  the   Pinyin  -   if the  context  does  not  make  it  clear  -  would   write the   City  name  Xi'an  or  Xi An

I'm  sure   99%  of  you  know this,  but   for the   1%  who don't  I thought    this  would  be  useful

Cheers
Peter

[George]

I can not recall for sure, but think Joey mentioned and corrected me about this a while back... That it should be one word..

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Yup, George. You've a good memory. I was taught to write the personal name (which as Peter correctly pointed out, is the second or second and third characters) as one, without a space.
For example: Ma Shaoxuan; Ma Shaoxian; Zhou Leyuan; Wang Xisan; etc., etc.
Best,
 Joey

[rpfstoneman]

So,

My question is why are the Chinese artists and/or workshops separating the surname in English by character?  Every one of the enclosed documents I've received on IPBs is this way; see attached certificate for my 'Girl in Red' bottle. 

Charll

[Steven]

Dear Charll,

I think writing the surname by seperated characters is not wrong, they are both right, but its a good way to seperate the characters since you can tell surname and given name easily.

There are some 2 characters given name in CHINA as well, for example 欧阳疯 Ouyang Feng, so Ouyang is surname name, and feng is a given,  if we write it Ou Yang feng, then people will confuse about the surname and given name, will think  Ou is surname name  and yangfeng is a given name.

I personally think the artist write the name seperately becasuse they are only think they are writing it in Pinyin, just for the pronunciation purpose.

Steven

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

I agree   with  Steven

Wang  Xisan   just  wrote   3   separate  names  on David  Osborne's  bottle  certificates  for   clarification .
So it's  just  for  clarification knowing that  David  Osborne  does  not read Chinese , like  on some western  credit   cards  the  name is  written,   SMITH,   JOHN   DAVID   

STEVEN  :  There  is also  the   family name  Ouyang .  My  PA has this  family name    so  her  name is  written  Ouyang  Jintao 

Cheers  Peter

[rpfstoneman]

Steven & Peter,

That makes sense.  Thank you for the additional clarification, Charll 

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

OK

So all  is   now   clear

Peng   Dali     

[Wattana]

But   an  obvious   example  - although  not a  person's  name  -  would  be  Xi An ( the   city )   Xi 西  =  West +  An  =  Peace  安 ,  which as  one  word  would  be   written  Xian   ( "Xian" :   先 =   first  ，仙 =   immortal  being   ， 县  =  county  ...  several   different   characters ) 

But  in this  case  the   Pinyin  -   if the  context  does  not  make  it  clear  -  would   write the   City  name  Xi'an  or  Xi An

I'm  sure   99%  of  you  know this,  but   for the   1%  who don't  I thought    this  would  be  useful

Peter,

Thanks for that. I must be the 1% since I never knew that the city of Xian was two words. In those cases it makes good sense to have the apostrophe, as in Xi'an, although to pinyin affectionados this may smack of genuflecting to Wade-Giles. 

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi Tom

It's  worth  taking a    crash  course  in Pinyin. 

It  took me  only    a few  hours  of  tutorials  to  learn the   spelling rules  and  I guess   there  are  even  free  lessons  on  the  internet

Of course,  it's  impossible to  learn the  exact  pronunciation   without  a  one-to-one  with a  native  Mandarin speaker , but one  can get  pretty  close

Everyone  knows that  Xian  is  Xi-An because the   context makes it  clear.  But there's  two  provinces  in China   with almost  identical    pinyin names  :  Shanxi and  Sha'anxi    where  the   apostrophe  is  actually used   a la   Wade Giles.

BTW:  Wade  Giles  was a   really   dumb  system (  at least  IMHO), as  is the   system used  in Taiwan.   Pinyin is  incredibly  clever .

Cheers  Peter