I discovered some fun language facts this week and just wanted to share.
My friend told me that the Chinese name for Timothée Chalamet is 甜茶 tiánchá which means ‘sweet tea,’ referencing his sweet appearance, but also sounding somewhat like his English name. In the same week, I found out that American Sign Language has some similarly interesting names for public figures. Some people will sign the sign for ‘liar’ but with an ‘H’ handshape. Perhaps more interestingly, the sign for Donald Trump is roughly an imitation of a toupée.
It’s really an interesting thing. It’s actually a pretty fun feature – a way of getting around really annoying and hard-to-pronounce transliterations in Chinese (although the way to say Hillary Clinton in Chinese is Xīlālǐ Kèlíndùn 希拉里·克林顿 in Mainland China (Language Log). You can also fingerspell names in ASL, but you can also create shorter, descriptive names.
In this video , Joe explains that his ASL sign name has a “J” handshape and also makes reference to the dimples he had as a small child. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Chinese name is 卷福 (Juǎnfú, “Curly Fortune”; World of Chinese).
Unfortunately, my knowledge of ASL ends there. Our department here has really amazing Sign Language Linguistics and we often have ASL interpreters in my classes and seminars. So I’m slowly learning more about ASL and sign languages generally. So, back to Chinese, Nicky Minaj has a really good Chinese name: 麻辣鸡 (Málàjī, “Numbing-Spicy Chicken”). It sounds a lot like her name, and it also refers to her attractiveness (World of Chinese).
My final example is one of my favorites. It’s not actually about naming people, but about naming a company or product. I have long found this topic interesting. Coca Cola originally had a different Chinese name, but then at some stage they changed it to 可口可乐 kě kǒu kě lè , which essentially means “tasty happiness” and also sounds almost exactly the same as in English (well, as close as you can get with English and Chinese). It’s a really great translation, and it apparently radically improved sales of the drink in China. This is a really practical (read: financially important) skill. Translating the sound and the meaning in order to have better brand perception. It really beats the English, which refers to cocaine and cola, neither of which are ingredients in the drink anymore.
I will end on an interesting anecdote about how I came up with my Chinese name (which I would like to point out I get many compliments on how Chinese it sounds!). Originally, I named myself 姜麦春 jiāng mài chūn . I picked the surname 姜 jiāng because it means ginger, and I have reddish hair. It would be like a little inside joke. I picked 麦春 mài chūn because it has the same meaning as Catherine, which is something along the lines of ‘purity.’ I had a job interview soon after I decided on this name. I gave my name in the interview and the interviewer looked a bit puzzled, but we didn’t dwell on it too long. At the end of the interview, after I had been offered the position, he asked me again what my name was. I told him why I picked it and what it meant and he told me that 麦春 mài chūn sounds like 买春 mǎi chūn, which means to ‘buy spring,’ which is a euphemism for prostitution. I was so embarassed. I later substituted one of the characters and my Chinese name is now 姜淑纯, which just means Ginger Purity, which was all I wanted all along.
