July 25, 2006

Yiwen...
After a lot of dithering, I've finally chosen a Chinese name for myself. It took me a while to come up with something Chinese, related to my English name, and that had a meaning that I like. A lot of Westerners with a name related to Stephen will choose "Si1di4fen1" as their Chinese name, as it sounds quite close. However, the name has three characters, while most Chinese only have two characters for their first name, and one for their family name.
I was fliping through my Chinese text and came across the name Yi4wen2 (意文). If you think about it, my Chinese name sounds like the last part of my English one if you turn the [v] to a [w]. I also like that the name has the connotation of knowledge, books, and learning. Yi4 can have the sense of idea, meaning, and wish, while wen2 can have the sense of language, culture, and writing.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

> "connotation of knowledge, books, and learning"

So your name will convey a nerdy, pile of paper that is all theory. Interesting :)

> "Yi4 can have the sense of idea, meaning, and wish, while wen2 can have the sense of language, culture, and writing"

So clueless but literate. Works for me :)

PS. My wife told me that my name "Tim" in Vietnamese means heart so I get stuck with "messy blood pump" :(

Stephen said...

Yah, something like that, lol.

Anonymous said...

Just kidding. Your choice suits you very well. Take care in China and keep us posted.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Wow, you sure did put a lot of thinking into your Chinese name. My Chinese manager told me what my name was and I said "okay!" Apparently it's a nice name ... I'll take their word for it!

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed a lot! »