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ArchivesHelp me find the meaning of my Mum's Chinese mn
My Mum has the Chinese middle name WENNA (pronounced as it looks), but it's not necessarily spelt that way. I was wondering if any one here knew the meaning of the middle name because she'd really like to know. Thanks :)
~....:I HAVE A FOOD PROCESSOR OLDER THAN U:...~
~....:I HAVE A FOOD PROCESSOR OLDER THAN U:...~
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My guess is it is Wen Na
Wen means culture, and is used in Chinese names (like Meiwen) for instance.
I've also read that Na means "graceful", but I'm not sure of that.
Of course, Cantonese and Mandarin are different but some words may be the same.
"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)
Wen means culture, and is used in Chinese names (like Meiwen) for instance.
I've also read that Na means "graceful", but I'm not sure of that.
Of course, Cantonese and Mandarin are different but some words may be the same.
"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)
1
I invite you to play around a little with a Chinese dictionary, e.g. the one at:
http://www.mandarintools.com/chardict_u8.html
If you enter "wen" in the box for "Pinyin lookup" and then click the button "Search by Pinyin" the large number of results will quickly tell you that a statement like "wen means culture" is not wrong, but certainly misleading as "wen" can mean culture and about two dozen other things. (Maybe, as a speaker of English and seeing this, one immediately asks oneself how such a language can work at all!)
What is interesting: The Cantonese lookup for "wen" does not give any results. Of course this could have all kinds of reasons, among them: incomplete dictionary, wrong Romanization of the name in question, or the mother of the poster being Cantonese but carrying a Mandarin middle name after all.
As a already said in my first posting: This exercise, given only the information "Wenna, Chinese", is quite futile.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
http://www.mandarintools.com/chardict_u8.html
If you enter "wen" in the box for "Pinyin lookup" and then click the button "Search by Pinyin" the large number of results will quickly tell you that a statement like "wen means culture" is not wrong, but certainly misleading as "wen" can mean culture and about two dozen other things. (Maybe, as a speaker of English and seeing this, one immediately asks oneself how such a language can work at all!)
What is interesting: The Cantonese lookup for "wen" does not give any results. Of course this could have all kinds of reasons, among them: incomplete dictionary, wrong Romanization of the name in question, or the mother of the poster being Cantonese but carrying a Mandarin middle name after all.
As a already said in my first posting: This exercise, given only the information "Wenna, Chinese", is quite futile.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
This message was edited 10/27/2005, 4:34 AM
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Yes, but not all words are good names
For a word to be part of a name, it must have a good meaning. And "wen" is such a word. I doubt that "question", "behead" or "plague" would be a good word in a name.
Of course, without knowing the Chinese characters, one can not really know. It is just a speculation built on Chinese names I know of.
But seeing this page, I think I would guess "stable, firm" since the Cantonese word is the somewhat similar "wan". I also see that the pinyin "na", which means "graceful, elegant", is "no" in Cantonese.
"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)
For a word to be part of a name, it must have a good meaning. And "wen" is such a word. I doubt that "question", "behead" or "plague" would be a good word in a name.
Of course, without knowing the Chinese characters, one can not really know. It is just a speculation built on Chinese names I know of.
But seeing this page, I think I would guess "stable, firm" since the Cantonese word is the somewhat similar "wan". I also see that the pinyin "na", which means "graceful, elegant", is "no" in Cantonese.
"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)
1
What you want can't be done.
Chinese is full of so-called "homophones": Words that sound exactly the same or more or less the same (different only in tone) but have completely different meanings.
Let us assume that behind the middle name of your mother are the two words "wen" and "na". Just some of the possibilities for "wen" from a Chinese dictionary:
- ask about
- literature, culture, writing
- lukewarm
- eye, hole
- stable, firm
- hear
Together with a similar list of different meanings for "na" you get at least dozens of combinations and thus possible meanings. You find a more detailed explanation of the problem of homophones in Chines e.g. here:
http://www.magma.ca/~mtooker/names/explan.htm
But wait, it does not stop there. What do we mean by "Chinese"? There is no Chinese language. There are several languages spoken in China, the two most frequent ones being Mandarin and Cantonese (my examples from above are Mandarin). What language is Wenna from? We don't know, I assume. And here it gets completely hopeless, as I see it.
If you really want to know the meaning of the middle name of your mother, in my opinion there is only one possible way: You have to track down records of her Chinese ancestors and find Wenna WRITTEN IN CHINESE, i.e. written with Chinese characters. As soon as you have the name in such writing, the problem is solved, because one just has to look up what the characters mean that were used to write Wenna.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
Chinese is full of so-called "homophones": Words that sound exactly the same or more or less the same (different only in tone) but have completely different meanings.
Let us assume that behind the middle name of your mother are the two words "wen" and "na". Just some of the possibilities for "wen" from a Chinese dictionary:
- ask about
- literature, culture, writing
- lukewarm
- eye, hole
- stable, firm
- hear
Together with a similar list of different meanings for "na" you get at least dozens of combinations and thus possible meanings. You find a more detailed explanation of the problem of homophones in Chines e.g. here:
http://www.magma.ca/~mtooker/names/explan.htm
But wait, it does not stop there. What do we mean by "Chinese"? There is no Chinese language. There are several languages spoken in China, the two most frequent ones being Mandarin and Cantonese (my examples from above are Mandarin). What language is Wenna from? We don't know, I assume. And here it gets completely hopeless, as I see it.
If you really want to know the meaning of the middle name of your mother, in my opinion there is only one possible way: You have to track down records of her Chinese ancestors and find Wenna WRITTEN IN CHINESE, i.e. written with Chinese characters. As soon as you have the name in such writing, the problem is solved, because one just has to look up what the characters mean that were used to write Wenna.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
This message was edited 10/25/2005, 11:20 PM
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