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ArchivesChinese character for Lan - "Beautiful Orchid"
My daughter Claire Lan Du was adopted from China in August of 2003. She is now about 3 1/2 years old. We were told that her given Chinese name "Lan" means "beautiful orchid", which agrees with the translation "orchid" given here. I was wondering if anyone more literate in Chinese (Mandarin) than I am could show me the character for this and tell me where ti came from (i.e. what other characters if any, were used to create it and what they mean). Thanks! - Scott Church (Bothell, WA).
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Replies
Mei or Li means "beautiful" in Chinese
In traditional given names (which usually consisted of two words), Mei and Li were popular first parts of the given name. As in Meili, Meiling, Meiwen and other girl's names. Meilan could be written Mei-Lan, Mei-lan or Mei Lan as well as Meilan.
In the Disney film Mulan, I think the heroine's name means "brave orchid". So I would say that Lan means just "orchid".
Since Claire means "bright", Claire Lan would mean "bright orchid". :) (Though the Chinese world for "bright" is Ming.)
"You sought a flower and found a fruit. You sought a spring and found a sea. You sought a woman and found a soul. You are disappointed."
"It does not become me to make myself smaller than I am." (Edith Södergran 1891-1923)
In traditional given names (which usually consisted of two words), Mei and Li were popular first parts of the given name. As in Meili, Meiling, Meiwen and other girl's names. Meilan could be written Mei-Lan, Mei-lan or Mei Lan as well as Meilan.
In the Disney film Mulan, I think the heroine's name means "brave orchid". So I would say that Lan means just "orchid".
Since Claire means "bright", Claire Lan would mean "bright orchid". :) (Though the Chinese world for "bright" is Ming.)
"You sought a flower and found a fruit. You sought a spring and found a sea. You sought a woman and found a soul. You are disappointed."
"It does not become me to make myself smaller than I am." (Edith Södergran 1891-1923)
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Yes, the "lan" in Mulan is the Lan = orchid that we talk about here, but "mu" is not "brave".
From the ever-helpful Wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Mulan
"The word "mulan" means "magnolia." ("Mu" by itself means "wood" and "Lan" means "orchid")."
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
From the ever-helpful Wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Mulan
"The word "mulan" means "magnolia." ("Mu" by itself means "wood" and "Lan" means "orchid")."
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
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Mandarin Lan for "orchid" is more exactly lan2 or lán as written in Pinyin (a system to write Chinese with Latin script) because the "a" is spoken in the second tone, means the tone rises.
Strictly speaking the name does not mean "beautiful orchid" but simply "orchid". To add "beautiful" would need another syllable and give a name like Meilan (which seems to be in use as well). But of course an orchid is supposed to be beautiful.
The Chinese character for orchid is: 蘭
You find details about this character and a picture to properly display it in case that your computer does not have a font installed that includes Chinese characters here:
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=862D
The long horizontal stroke at the top crossed by two small vertical strokes is the radical for "flower" and tells us that this character stands for some kind of flower. The rest of the character below this is: 闌
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=95cc
The core meaning of this character is some kind of fence to bar entry to some place. As such it has nothing to do with flower in general or orchid in particular; it just happens to stand for a word that is also pronounced lan2.
You can further decompose this character into 門 (gate) and 柬 - see
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=9580
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=67EC
In the Chinese mainland you would hardly see this beautiful but somewhat complicated character for orchid because it was replaced by a "simplified character": 兰
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=5170
But in Hongkong, Taiwan and Japan they still use the traditional character that I explained.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
Strictly speaking the name does not mean "beautiful orchid" but simply "orchid". To add "beautiful" would need another syllable and give a name like Meilan (which seems to be in use as well). But of course an orchid is supposed to be beautiful.
The Chinese character for orchid is: 蘭
You find details about this character and a picture to properly display it in case that your computer does not have a font installed that includes Chinese characters here:
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=862D
The long horizontal stroke at the top crossed by two small vertical strokes is the radical for "flower" and tells us that this character stands for some kind of flower. The rest of the character below this is: 闌
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=95cc
The core meaning of this character is some kind of fence to bar entry to some place. As such it has nothing to do with flower in general or orchid in particular; it just happens to stand for a word that is also pronounced lan2.
You can further decompose this character into 門 (gate) and 柬 - see
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=9580
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=67EC
In the Chinese mainland you would hardly see this beautiful but somewhat complicated character for orchid because it was replaced by a "simplified character": 兰
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=5170
But in Hongkong, Taiwan and Japan they still use the traditional character that I explained.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
1
If there are any ethnic Chinese people in your community, they might well own some lovely computer software that enables you to type in an English word and have it appear on screen in Chinese characters. I don't own it, though I've seen it in action and it's fascinating.
Might be worth a try!
Might be worth a try!
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