Eric's Beijing Diary

So what is in a name? Shakespeare expresses it this way in Juliet's question to Romeo:

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

How much of what we think of people rests in their name? And how much the name we were given affect who we are? I have always been interested in etymology, which is the study of word origins (not to be confused with entomology, which is the study of insects). The origin of names is just part of that, but quite an important part, because names are so tied in with history. So I guess it's partly my interest in history that motivates me to find out about names.

Click or tap on any character image to see the Romanization (pinyin spelling).
When I first came to China, I would often ask about the meaning of names. One example is the name "Wudaokou," which is the name of a community within the city of Beijing that was very near to my campus at the time. I remember asking a waitress at the coffee bar what the name meant. She would say, "It doesn't mean anything; it's just a name. If I had a dollar for every time I have heard that in China, I would be a very rich man. I was certain that was not true, but I did not know how to get an answer to my question. Then one day I was talking with my friend Raymond about it, and he told me the answer. He said that his grandfather worked for railroad, and "Wudaokou" named the fifth railroad crossing on the rail line that comes out of Beijing heading north. A little while later I was riding my bike and saw a sign that said, "Sidaokou." Fourth railroad crossing. Later, I was riding the bus, and I heard them call out the next stop: "Liudaokou." Sixth railroad crossing. I thought, "By George, Raymond was right."

Now there is a Wikipedia article about Wudaokou that explains the whole thing, and even if there wasn't, I would probably be able to figure it out myself, because the characters are actually quite simple. But that was at the begining of my Chinese study, and I was befuddled, not only by the meaning of the word, but by the seeming lack of interest in name meanings that I often noticed in the people I talked to about the subject.

I experienced it with students too. “What does your name mean?”

Again, same response: “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a name.” Finally, I assigned the students to come up in front of the class one at a time and explain the meaning of their name to the class. Some English teachers assigned an English name for every student. I did not do that. The English majors all had English names. But the non-English majors often did not.

I told them that it was up to them, but I said, “If you are explaining your name to a foreigner, you need to do three things

1. Write the Chinese character.
2. Write the pinyin (Romanization for Chinese—the Romanization for Japanese is called “romaji”).
3. Tell the story. Explain how you got your name, and what it means.”

“But I don’t know what my name means.” I told them to call their parents, and talk to them, and their grandparents and whoever they needed to talk to in their family to find out how their name came to be. It was a fascinating exercise.

The character you see pictured here is the character for “fire.” It’s quite common in China, in part because the Chinese word for “train” is “fire car.”

I also used to see it quite a bit when I was hiking. I lived in a village in the western hills of Beijing for ten years—lots of hiking trails. No infrequently there would be signs that warned about fire. I expect to see this character at the train station, or when I am hiking in the woods. But I was completely unprepared to see it in a student’s name.

I said, “What’s that fire doing in your name?”

He said, “My parents put that there because the fortune teller said I didn’t have enough fire.”

He was not by any means the only student who mentioned fortune tellers in his explanation for how his name came to be. I don’t want to get sidetracked into a discussion of Chinese fortune telling, but I was fascinated to see the extent to which hopeful parents throughout the countryside of China relied on the “skills” of fortune tellers to help them build a good life for their precious new born child. This short video may help you to understand the five elements in Chinese culture:

So parents who wanted their child to have the personality traits that fire represents, would consult the fortune teller for help with this task.

The first character in this combination is “jing,” which in this case, is short for “anjing,” which means “quiet.” The second character is “fan.” But Jingfan told me that this character was influenced by the word “mafan.” Mafan is what we say in China if something is really mendokusai. “Troublesome” would be the closest English word. Actually, the “fan” in mafan is different. Not sure why they chose to use this one, unless I just typed it in wrong. But I think what happened is that they hesitated to use the actual character “fan” in mafan, because it has a very negative meaning, and would look strange in a child’s name.

So how did Jingfan get a name like “quiet troublesome?” She told the class that when she was a baby she cried a lot. Perhaps just very colicky. So her parents put the “quiet” in her name, because that is the quality they wanted to see in her, and they put the “fan” in her name, because she had been a very troublesome baby. Using this character “fan” instead of the “fan” from mafan actually gives her name a pleasant meaning. It’s sorta like “ordinary” or “common place.” So the two characters together mean “peaceful, quiet, and not extreme.” But to those who really know the situation, it’s kind of a private reminder of what she was like as an infant, and contrasts with what the quiet, peaceful woman they wanted her to grow into.