Need your suggestion about English name

3) Guo Li ===> Li Guo ===> (What) Guo ?

4) Song Wanwan ===> Wanwan Song ===> (What) Song?

Gonna have to give us genders--tho there's a lot of crossover, most names are either male or female, not both. For your first one, there is a very good and popular young (woman) Chinese-American singer-songwriter today named Vienna Teng (like the city in Austria), Shengyi Teng could become Shanghai Teng, if you wanted a stage-y kind of name.

Lee is a perfectly good English name, can be either male or female , Li Guo=Lee Guo.

Wanda, Wendy, Wendell, Winston Song

Channing or Shannon Lin

Shane and Shirley

Teng Shengyi could be Tony (if male) or Toni (if female). Of course, you're converting the family name into a given name. Otherwise, you'd have to convert Shengyi, so let us know if that's what you intend (because Jackie Chan, for example, didn't convert Long into an English name, he's just decided he wanted to use Jackie).

Lin Changqing could by Lynn, which work for male or female.

For Guo Li, as has been pointed out, Lee works fine and is gender neutral.

Song Wanwan could be about anything you wanted--Wanwan doesn't really match anything in English, at least nothing common (Wandel is not a commonly used name in English).

Male:
1) Teng Shengyi ===> Shengyi Teng ==> (What) Teng ?

2) Lin Changqing ===> Changqing Lin ==>(What) Lin ?

Female:
3) Guo Li ===> Li Guo ===> (What) Guo ?

4) Song Wanwan ===> Wanwan Song ===> (What) Song?

Please change the "what" into a good English name.

Thanks Set.
Male:
1) Teng Shengyi ===> Shengyi Tony ==> (What) Tony?

2) Lin Changqing ===> Changqing Lynn==>(What) Lynn?

Female:
3) Guo Li ===> Lee Guo ===> (What) Guo ?
(In this case, Guo is last name. Can "Lee" be used as first name in English?)

4) Song Wanwan (Dropped. Too hard to change this into E )name.)

One suggestion

First and last names generally sound better if, when combined, they form an odd rather than even, number of syllables. More pleasing cadence.

On the other hand, if you put 2 short, 1 syllable names together, it can sound more forceful, powerful.....a statement.

So, it all depends on what type of connotation you're going for.

If it were me, I'd avoid names where both first and last names begin with the same same letter. Sounds too cute and contrived, i.e. Charlie Chan.

If I were choosing an english name, I go with one's that sounds dignified, like Catherine, Jonathan, Louis, etc.

Sorry to be a little off-topic, but can I ask why?

I have a Chinese friend who has a Chinese name and an English name and she goes back and forth all the time (like, I'll get an email that is from her Chinese name and she'll sign it with her English name). I never know what to call her (the Chinese name isn't that hard to pronounce), I just follow her cues in going back and forth.

If she were on a message board asking what to do, I'd advise her to just stick with her Chinese name (which, personally, I find much more interesting and more "her" than the English one she chose).

Shawn Teng, Sam Teng, Shane Teng
Chuck Lin, Charles Lin, Chang Lin (Americans can say chang with little difficulty)



Lee Guo, Lea Guo, Lianna Guo
Wanda Song, Wendy Song, Rebecca Song, Rhonda Song (remembering that w's sound kind of like r's in Chinese?)

Red China Blues, she says means "Bright Precious" Wong. There is nothing in her given name which suggests Jan, but that is the "English" name which she chose, or was chosen for her, when she grew up in Montréal.

So i'd suggest that it is futile to attempt a European equivalent to Chinese given names, and you can just choose any name you like.

Yes, Lee is used as a first name in English, as well as being a well-known family name. The other examples i gave made a European name out of the Chinese family name.

I might comment that in Japanese, the clan name is also given first. So, for example, Nobunaga from the Oda clan is known in Japan as Oda Nobunaga. European accounts of him (he became well-known in Europe not long after he was assassinated in the 16th century because he cultivated the acquaintance of westerners, and the Jesuits were impressed with him and told his story in Europe) refer to him as Nobunaga Oda. But this is not reliable. The great Japanese admiral of World War Two Yamamoto Isoroku is usually rendered in English as Yamamoto Isoroku, leading the poorly educated European to refer to him as Admiral Isoroku, even though Isoroku is his given name. Better educated Europeans (in which category i am always including Canadians and all varieties of Americans) know of him as Admiral Yamamoto. The Japanese themselves do not always take European names, unless they are born and live in the western hemisphere (such as Alberto Fujimori, who was once President of Peru). I have also noticed that they understand what Europeans don't understand, so that if you met a Japanese named Matsudaira Motoyasu in American, he would introduce himself as Motoyasu Matsudaira.

http://www.luckychinesename.com/ChineseNameForm-E01.htm

http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager

It allows you to see names rated by popularity.

http://www.slate.com/id/2217001/

My understanding is that most Chinese first names (first name in our sense, that is, personal name, not family name)(usually the two-syllable ones) mean something. What do they mean in your examples? Sometimes you can use that meaning, or part of it, as a name. I've heard of a woman whose name meant "Jade Blossom" who became "Jade" (not a really common name but I've known two non-Chinese Jades). That is, maybe you can use the translation as a name.

On the other hand, I know a Chinese-American woman whose name, the way she translates it, means something like "a really large amount of dew". She just uses her Chinese name and everyone seems to cope perfectly well.

Great article, Joe, thanks . . .