Mindcrime
First Post
In real life, even though Chinese surnames "mean something," they don't really. They're just names. For instance, Wang is a common surname - it means King. Way back in the day, long before the dynasties got as big as they did, Wang was the ruler of the land. As the kingdom expanded, Wang became Huang Di, or Emperor, but the name Wang was then used for various ranks of noble, and then eventually ended up in the common pool of surnames. It still means King, but nobody really thinks of it like that. The same for Huang, which means "Yellow" - To me, my friend Mr. Huang is just that - Mr. Huang, not Mr. Yellow. It's just a name. This is the same for personal names, which are generally made of two characters - the 'generation' name (all male siblings of the same generation in a family share this name, all female siblings have their own generation name) and then the personal name. They all mean somehting, but not really. They're just names.
However, the Chinese loooooooooove nicknames. They have their family+generation+personal name, and then they have their nicknames, which are legion. To one group of friends, Mr. Huang (whose full name is Huang Ke-Long), might be known as Pang-Zi, or "Fatty" (he's a bit overweight); to another group of friends he might be called Ah-Long - these are his army mates, so adding "Ah" before a personal name shows intense familiarity with him. To the kids who work in the noodle stand down the street, he might be Da Ge or Su-Su - Da Ge mean Elder Brother, Su-Su means Elder Uncle, both are polite terms that show familiarity, but not so much that Mr. Huang needs to treat them like family or best friends. Finally, outside town, he might be known as Fan Tuan, a kind of oily sticky rice, a name he acquired when working on Mr. Song's farm one summer when it became evident that he loved to eat oily sticky rice.
Chris
However, the Chinese loooooooooove nicknames. They have their family+generation+personal name, and then they have their nicknames, which are legion. To one group of friends, Mr. Huang (whose full name is Huang Ke-Long), might be known as Pang-Zi, or "Fatty" (he's a bit overweight); to another group of friends he might be called Ah-Long - these are his army mates, so adding "Ah" before a personal name shows intense familiarity with him. To the kids who work in the noodle stand down the street, he might be Da Ge or Su-Su - Da Ge mean Elder Brother, Su-Su means Elder Uncle, both are polite terms that show familiarity, but not so much that Mr. Huang needs to treat them like family or best friends. Finally, outside town, he might be known as Fan Tuan, a kind of oily sticky rice, a name he acquired when working on Mr. Song's farm one summer when it became evident that he loved to eat oily sticky rice.
Chris
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