Chinese Name Generators
Table of Contents
Why People Need Chinese Name Generators
Most users of Chinese name generators belong to one of the following two groups:
- Fiction authors who seek to generate Chinese names for their characters.
- Language learners who want a pretty Chinese name.
Fiction authors feel the need to give their characters realistic Chinese names because they don't want readers to be distracted by culturally inauthentic elements in their writing. What if someone reading my story speaks Chinese? With about every fifth living human being Chinese, the chances of that are rather high. If such a reader sees a fake Chinese name it will immediately put them off or, in the worst case, even offend them.
Then why not just find a list of most popular Chinese names and pick one from it for your character? Well, the problem with the most popular names is that they are too recognisable to native speakers (and advanced non-native speakers). This approach may not match the style of your story because giving your character a notoriously frequent name could turn any writing into a comedy/paradoy.
So, fiction authors need to look somewhere off the beaten path, and this is where Chinese name generators come in. These allow them to name any number of characters quickly and on the cheap. Imagine you are writing a story about a group of Chinese students or a bunch of thugs. Each of them has to have a realistic Chinese name, which you'll probably never be able to figure out on your own, unless you're a native speaker. It's much easier to just get a list of authentic-looking names from a Chinese name generator in a matter of seconds.
Language learners from western countries are another category of users of Chinese name generators. Their problem is that due to the absolute disconnect between the phonetical systems of Chinese and any European language, you just can't transliterate western names into Chinese. Such names are perceived by Chinese speakers as overly long, clumsy, and weird.
One of the very first phrases a student learns in a foreign language is my name is... Learners of Chinese, no matter how advanced they are, understand that those words shouldn't be followed by a string of meaningless Chinese characters representing their transliterated western name. They want a shorter and prettier one, so some of them resort to Chinese name generators.
Mandarin Chinese Character Name Generator
Each name consists of a surname and a given name. The latter is accompanied by a short description of its meaning, like "Bright propriety". Unfortunately, the meaning of the surname is nowhere to be found.
Of course, the quality and authenticity of the names are far from perfect, just like the website's disclaimer says. Some authors might find this service useful, though.
Another small issue about Mandarin Character Name Generator is that there is no way to get the names in Chinese characters or at least in Pinyin, since they are rendered in plain English letters without any tone marks.
Here's what the generated names look like:
Zhang Qingge
First name means: "Love song."
Cui Xue
First name means: "Studious."
Sun Mingli
First name means: "Bright propriety."
Yuan Dongmei
First name means: "Younger sister."
Liang Dingxiang
First name means: "Stability and fortune."
Fantasy Name Generators
Just like in Mandarin Character Name Generator, you can only customise the gender of the name (male, female, random). The names are presented in plain English letters, which makes it impossible to get the name in Chinese characters.
The website interface is available in English, French, and Spanish. It may arguably be an indispensable tool for fiction authors creating multicultural worlds.
Regretfully, this wonderful service doesn't give you any clue as to what meanings the generated names have.
getrealchinesename.com
This website is more suitable for students learning Chinese than for authors writing fiction. It generates your Chinese name based on your English name taking into account your gender, year of birth, and desired qualities.
This is what the output looks like for a Jane Doe born in 1992:
As you can see, the snazzy "manuscript" claims that Jane Doe's Chinese name originates from a book written millennia ago. Actually, it is not an ancient name but a phrase that can be translated as "Prolong your life". So, you can't expect to get a 100%-real name here.
There is also some information about the meaning of the characters that the name consists of, and about Jane's Chinese zodiac sign.
Unlike other name generators, this service gives you the full name in both Chinese characters and plain English letters. Pronunciation is available in robotic voice (no Pinyin), but it's better than nothing.
If you don't like the name the service produced you can click on the Next One button and get another one for the same settings.
Everything is more or less fine about getrealchinesename.com, except for the fact that the list of qualities is disappointingly short. You can only select one of the 5 options: average, wealth and fortune, beauty and appearance, mind and intelligence, strength and power.
Random Name Generator
It appears that the focus of this service is neither on students nor on fiction authors. We can only imagine two typical use cases:
(1) Generation of mock input data for the purpose of testing software.
(2) Catfishing, identity theft, fraud, and other dishonest activities.
Nonetheless, if you need a random Chinese name for a character in your book Random Name Generator might help you out.
You can select almost any country for your "fake identity", including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Otherwise, the only customisable parameter is gender.
The service will give you a full name in Chinese characters, but unfortunately without Pinyin or pronunciation audio.
Your Chinese Astrology
Although this service is called Chinese Name Generator and is hosted on a website dedicated to Astrology, it's got nothing to do with either.
It doesn't generate Chinese names, it transliterates them, i. e. gives you a name that sounds somewhat similar to an English name. For example, typing in Jane Doe results in the following full name:
Dǒng Jì Nà
Here, the first Character 董 (Dǒng) obviously stands for the surname Doe, and 寄 娜 (Jì Nà) for Jane. Needless to say, the meanings of the characters are nowhere to be seen as they are irrelevant.
The service both shows Pinynin for each character and lets you listen to the auto-generated pronunciation. Another convenience is that the Chinese name is presented in simplified and traditional.
The names obtained using yourchineseastrology.com are in no way suitable for fictional characters. Students wishing to get themselves an authentic Chinese name should also give such services a wide berth. Nevertheless, we believe that this is a fair Chinese name transliterator.
Chinese.gratis
Chinese.gratis seems to be about the visual component of Chinese name, i. e. it is concerned more with what the characters look like rather than what they mean. You can get a Chinese name generated in a variety of fonts.
In the input form, you can only specify your name, surname, gender, and one of the 5 qualities: beauty and appearance, tranquillity, intelligence, richness and abundance, feelings. Unlike getrealchinesename.com, you can't get more than one Chinese name, unless you change your English name, gender, or qualities.
Pronunciation information is missing entirely (except for the romanisation stripped of all tone marks). This is what Jane Doe gets if she selects Beauty and appearance:
(nanjie)
Comparison Table
| Service | Meaningful names | Pronunciation | Chinese characters | Good for authors | Good for learners | Overall score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mandarin Chinese Character Name Generator | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | B |
| Fantasy Name Generators | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | C |
| getrealchinesename.com | So-so | Audio | Yes | Yes | Yes | B |
| Random Name Generator | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | C |
| Your Chinese Astrology | No | Audio + Pinyin | Yes | No | No | C+ |
| Chinese.gratis | No | No | Yes | No | No | C |
We can't say that some of these Chinese name generators are better or worse than the others. They just serve different purposes. If you need to get a Chinese name quickly you can do it with one of the services listed in the table. Of course, you have to realise that they are all just unsophisticated software and the names they produce might contain negative connotations or sound weird to a native speaker. If you need a real, authentic Chinese name you should consider using a professional Chinese name-picking service.