Chinese translations for AQ characters

[inverarity]

Since LiveJournal is turning everything Russian, how about some Chinese? AQ fan Karinta sent me this list of Mandarin translations for character names, looking up the meanings of their names as needed.

快守仁 (Kuài Shǒurén) Alexandra Quick
儲恩納 (Chǔ Ēnnà) Anna Chu
力恒 (Lì Héng) Constance Pritchard
力忍 (Lì Rěn) Forbearance Pritchard
穗親朋 (Suì Qīnpéng) David Washington
棘眾父 (Jí Zhòngfù) Abraham Thorn
王大明 (Wáng Dàmíng) Maximilian King
嚴之夜 (Yán Zhīyè) Lilith Grimm
嚴明月 (Yán Míngyuè) Diana Grimm
嚴魅力 (Yán Mèilì) Hecate Grimm
途好言 (Tú Hǎoyán) Benedict Journey
蹲黑雷 (Dūn Hēiléi) Elias Hucksteen
嶢小親 (Yáo Xiǎoqīn) Darla Dearborn
松坂友 (Sōngbǎn Yǒu/Matsuzaka Tomo) Tomo Matsuzaka
撊破 (Xiàn Pò) Claudia Pruett
撊藍 (Xiàn Lán) Livia Pruett
白光亮 (Bái Guāngliàng) Lucilla White
白露珠 (Bái Lùzhū) Drusilla White
白壯烈 (Bái Zhuàngliè) Valeria White
王青春 (Wáng Qīngchūn) Julia King
儲革命 (Chǔ Gémìng) (rather obvious)
力純 (Lì Chún) Innocence Pritchard
擇機治 (Zéjī Zhì) Henry Tsotsie
鷯＆雀 (Liáo & Què) Bran & Poe
勤 (Qín) Em
崖辛苦 (Yá Xīnkǔ) Mary Shirtliffe
青正勁 (Qīng Zhèngjìn) Archie Green
海恪守 (Hǎi Kèshǒu) Brian Seabury
海嫵媚 (Hǎi Wǔmèi) Bonnie Seabury
驚以盔 (Jīng Yǐkuī) Billy Boggleston
死命 (Sǐ Mìng) The Most Deathly Power
天星 (Tiān Xīng) The Stars Above
父日 (Fù Rì) Father Sun
地土 (Dì Tǔ) The Earth
胡鬧 (Húnào) Mischief

Fun bonus trivia fact about Anna: Her native dialect is actually Amoy. However, like any well-educated Chinese witch, she can get by in Mandarin as well. (She also knows a smattering of Cantonese, mostly from hanging around Muggle Chinatown.)

Comments

[swissmarg]

I don't know any Chinese but this is really cool. How did she come up with the names? I can see that Anna/Enna sounds similar, likewise Elias/Heilei, and I assume that Heng means Constance and Ren means Forbearance, etc. (sorry for no tonal accents), but why is Pritchard translated as Li? Or Drusilla as Luzhu? And so on. I'm just curious.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I don't know Chinese either. I think some are basically phonetic transliterations (e.g. "Anna" and "Elias") while others are based on looking up the original meanings of the names and then translating them. The etymology of Pritchard is "Son of Richard," so I'm not sure how that became "Li" either, but I know some Western names have standard Chinese translations.

If you didn't know, I'm Karinta.

[agogobell.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for posting this!!!!

The reason Pritchard became "Li" is because Richard can have the meaning of "power". "Anna" is essentially phonosemantic matching ("En" meaning "grace", as "Hannah", the original form of Anna, did in Hebrew, and "na" just being a particle I put on there"), and "Elias"/Heilei means "black thunder" - I thought it was appropriate.
I had forgotten that Anna's real Chinese name was Hua (presumably written 花 or "flower)... sorry about that.
Also, Hecate Grimm - her name is 魅力 (Mèilì), or "charm, enchantment, spell", but a near-homophone is 美麗 (Měilì) which means "beautiful" or "pretty". I thought a good pun was needed. Drusilla was Lùzhū because lùzhū means "dew-drop", and Drusilla comes from the Latinised form of Greek "drosos", which again means "dew".
Oh and of COURSE Anna would speak Hokkien!! But if that were true, then why would one use Pinyin for romanisation of their names? Wouldn't the logical choice be Peh-oe-ji? But okay, I see why you used Mandarin pronunciations for the Ink-Editing Countercharm and the names and suchlike. It's easier and would reach a higher percentage of people.

Re: If you didn't know, I'm Karinta.

[swissmarg]

Thank you for the explanation. It sounds like you really put a lot of thought and research into it. Very cool!

Re: If you didn't know, I'm Karinta.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

This is so interesting and amusing that I will break my vow of silence on this Lj and ask a few questions and comments. How did you select the names for a character like David Washington? By translating the etimological meaning of the names (David = Beloved, Wash+ing+ton = farm or manor house of the tribe of the Wash) or by going back to two historical heroes comparable to King David and General Washington? Any chance, in fact, that we can see a complete list of explanations? A lot of thought has gone into this, and I think a number of us would find it interesting - I know I would.

When I saw this my first instinct was to see whether the same could be done for Latin (Italian would be pretty trivial), but I immediately ran into unmanageable difficulties. The name Pritchard, just mentioned, would give a good idea. Pritchard is from Welsh Ap Richard, "Son of Richard". All right. And Richard is Frankish Ric (King, Emperor - the front position makes it an attributive) plus Hard (exactly the same as in modern English). So it is "King-Hard", hard as a king - meaning, of course, in battle. But that cannot be translated into Latin, because Latin names, unlike Germanic ones, only use one single noun or adjective. So you could be Regalis, Royal, or Fortis, strong, hard, but never "Regaliter-Fortis", royally strong. What is more, unlike Germanic names, Roman ones were not always made of well-omened words, but could be oddly neutral (Caepio, onion farmer, Cicero, chickpea farmer) or even apparently negative (Paulus, small; Claudius, lame; Cocles, one-eyed, Posthumus, orphaned before birth). it could be done with imported Greek names, which were widely used in Rome, and which, like Germanic ones, were often compounded of two well-omened words. But then you would have to deal with differences in use, emphasis, meaning. Richard cannot be Hellenized to sound positive. Say that Ric is Anak (Homeric Wanak, high king, found in such names as Anacreon, Anaktoria, Anaximander), "hard" would have to be "skleros", which, though it largely shares the meaning, has mostly negative connotations in Greek. And if we swallowd that, then we would have to have an Anaxkleros, a name unknown to Greek, then Latinize it into Anasclerus or the like, and finally (remember "ap" for "son"), insert an infix -i- to mean "come from, son of": Anasclerius. Which really seems too much work for a rather ugly-looking result, and would lead to stupid jokes about the real need for Forbearance. Which makes me the more curious to know how you got all those graceful-sounding Chinese names.

Re: If you didn't know, I'm Karinta.

[agogobell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I pretty much went all the way back to the original base meanings of the words, and since I've taken Mandarin for three years, I knew a bit of stuff about what characters are good for names.

And not all of them are graceful-sounding - to native speakers, at least. I imagine that some of the names would sound downright clumsy to people who are far more initiated in the world of Chinese names than I.

Pritchard was difficult, but I just used the Chinese word for "power" as a surname. Now what was REALLY hard was Elias Hucksteen. "Hocke" in German means "crouch, squat", so I did that.