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Archiveschinese meanings. please help.
so my sisters and i have chinese middle names given to us by our great grandmother. But it seems like our middle names are lost in translation. Our grandmother "popo", told us that our middle names our flowers.
so basically our names are supposedly Hakka.
my middle name is Kwai Fa and I think the spelling is wrong but after researching I found a name most similar to it, which is Kwai Fah, which is the Osmanthus Fragrans. I hope that is correct.
Now my sister's are a bit more difficult.
One is Kwai Lin, and the other is Kwai Larn...And yes the spelling is probably incorrect.
So I don't know where to start because I don't read or speak Chinese. I need help. We would love to know the meanings of our names which are lost in translation.
Anything would help. Thank you.
so basically our names are supposedly Hakka.
my middle name is Kwai Fa and I think the spelling is wrong but after researching I found a name most similar to it, which is Kwai Fah, which is the Osmanthus Fragrans. I hope that is correct.
Now my sister's are a bit more difficult.
One is Kwai Lin, and the other is Kwai Larn...And yes the spelling is probably incorrect.
So I don't know where to start because I don't read or speak Chinese. I need help. We would love to know the meanings of our names which are lost in translation.
Anything would help. Thank you.
1
Replies
you need to ask somebody who speaks Hakka I think
If your names are Hakka, and not mandarin, then I can't really help you, because those are two different languages/dialects.
If Osmanthus fragrans is correct, then the chinese characters for your name would be : 桂花 (pronounced "gui hua" in mandarin), literally "cinnamon flower" or "cassia flower"
Since you and your sisters all have the same "Kwai", your names might all be based on the same flower-type: 桂 (osmanthus, laurel)
So it might be a lead to find words starting with this character and then check their Hakka pronunciation?
btw, I don't think the spellings of your names are incorrect, but rather there is no "correct" one. It's just a try of expressing a certain pronunciation in our alphabet and I suppose there is nothing like "pinyin" for Hakka.
My guesses for now are:
Kwai Lin: 桂蓮 ("laurel/osmanthus" and "lotus") or 桂林 ("laurel/osmanthus" and "wood, timber")
Kwai Larn/Kwai Lan: 桂蘭 ("laurel/osmanthus and orchid")
Kwai seems to be frequently spelt as "Gwai" as well. I was able to find at least a few people on the net bearing those names (character combinations).
But well, this might be completely wrong as well, but at least it corresponds to the "flower names"-hint =)
If your names are Hakka, and not mandarin, then I can't really help you, because those are two different languages/dialects.
If Osmanthus fragrans is correct, then the chinese characters for your name would be : 桂花 (pronounced "gui hua" in mandarin), literally "cinnamon flower" or "cassia flower"
Since you and your sisters all have the same "Kwai", your names might all be based on the same flower-type: 桂 (osmanthus, laurel)
So it might be a lead to find words starting with this character and then check their Hakka pronunciation?
btw, I don't think the spellings of your names are incorrect, but rather there is no "correct" one. It's just a try of expressing a certain pronunciation in our alphabet and I suppose there is nothing like "pinyin" for Hakka.
My guesses for now are:
Kwai Lin: 桂蓮 ("laurel/osmanthus" and "lotus") or 桂林 ("laurel/osmanthus" and "wood, timber")
Kwai Larn/Kwai Lan: 桂蘭 ("laurel/osmanthus and orchid")
Kwai seems to be frequently spelt as "Gwai" as well. I was able to find at least a few people on the net bearing those names (character combinations).
But well, this might be completely wrong as well, but at least it corresponds to the "flower names"-hint =)
1
Okay, first I know no chinese myself.
Second, the problem is that not every language in the world can be written using the Roman script accurately: In this case, what one is usually trying to do is write something which when pronounced by a subset of English speaking people sounds somewhat like what some subset of Chinese people would say. So, the concept of a `correct spelling' is even less meaningful in this context than in general. Thus, nothing much happened to the Chinese pronounication, but Peking suddenly became the `wrong spelling' and Beijing became the right one!
Also, Chinese have tones (each vowel is spoken with various accents, or more properly, `tones') and the meaning depends on that.
Having said all that, I picked out some words which in some prnouniciation sounds a bit like the Kwai, Fa, Lin, and Lam. If you can recognize the words, you will at least be ahead in knowing which Chinese characters your names are, and then, you can try to figure out which flowers the combinations do mean.
The list is long, so I put it in http://tanmoy.tripod.com/KwaiFaLinLam.html (I haven't looked at it: I just blindly put together a list of words which might have a similarity in pronounciation)
Hope someone here who knows chinese will respond to you and you don't have to do the hard work yourself.
Second, the problem is that not every language in the world can be written using the Roman script accurately: In this case, what one is usually trying to do is write something which when pronounced by a subset of English speaking people sounds somewhat like what some subset of Chinese people would say. So, the concept of a `correct spelling' is even less meaningful in this context than in general. Thus, nothing much happened to the Chinese pronounication, but Peking suddenly became the `wrong spelling' and Beijing became the right one!
Also, Chinese have tones (each vowel is spoken with various accents, or more properly, `tones') and the meaning depends on that.
Having said all that, I picked out some words which in some prnouniciation sounds a bit like the Kwai, Fa, Lin, and Lam. If you can recognize the words, you will at least be ahead in knowing which Chinese characters your names are, and then, you can try to figure out which flowers the combinations do mean.
The list is long, so I put it in http://tanmoy.tripod.com/KwaiFaLinLam.html (I haven't looked at it: I just blindly put together a list of words which might have a similarity in pronounciation)
Hope someone here who knows chinese will respond to you and you don't have to do the hard work yourself.
1
As you say anything would help, let me just make this remark: If you want to be sure, you have to find your names written with Chinese characters. Given that, finding out the meaning is trivial - one just "reads" the characters. It should not be too hard to find people who can help you with that.
If you don't have that, but only the pronounciations of your names (more or less), this will always be pure guesswork, because so many words in Chinese languages have (again more or less) the same pronounciation.
Something like "Kwai Lin" may easily have a dozen meanings...
If you don't have that, but only the pronounciations of your names (more or less), this will always be pure guesswork, because so many words in Chinese languages have (again more or less) the same pronounciation.
Something like "Kwai Lin" may easily have a dozen meanings...
1