Our Chinese Names

Our Dad's Chinese Names

It is (or was) normal for Chinese men (less so for women) to have adopted more than one name through their life. Out dad had three names... 

Our dad's generation name is the character 賢 (Yen in Toisan; Jin in Cantonese) in the bottom row, second from the right. His birth name was 劉 賢 振, Lew Yen Gene in Toisan, Lau Jin Jaan in Cantonese, and Liu Xian Zhen in Mandarin. That name was registered in the village temple. but almost no one in China knew him by that name. On one of his hand-drawn family trees, he called himself 賢 振. Those are the two middle characters in the bottom row of the village poem. 

Instead, people in Toisan knew him as 劉 振 明 (complex), 刘 振 明 (simplified), Lew Gene Ming in Toisan, Lau Jaan Ming in Cantonese, and Liu Zhen Ming in Mandarin. He said Gene / Jaan / Zhen means "worthy" or "capable", Ming means "bright" or "clear".  He translated it as to "boost" or "expand" in the village poem translation, below. His nickname "Jimmy" ("Gene" at work) came from those characters, Gene Ming.

When our dad came to the US used his paper-son name, which he bought from his uncle. That name was 錦 柏 , Gum Baak in Cantonese, which he spelled "Gimpock" on his immigration papers. "Gimpock" is probably closer to the Toisan pronuciation. Gum in Cantonese, Jin in Mandarin, means "elegant" or "brocade". Baak in Cantonese, Bo in Mandarin, means "cypress". This was the official name that many people in the US knew him by, though they still called him Jim or Jimmy.

All of the characters for our dad's three Chinese names appear along the lower left side (in smaller characters) on the village calligraphy poem above. There are also two red "chops", one for Lew Gene Ming, and one for Lew Gim Pock. 

How Chinese Names Influence One's Life

In Chinese culture, a person's name is believed to say much about their life. That is one reason why people will adopt new names over time, which is perfectly acceptable in traditional Chinese culture (I am not sure about today).

Chinese scholars and psychics can tell what the person's personality is like, what their past life was like, and what their future might be like based on their names. They look at the meaning of each character in the name overall, the meanings of different parts of each character, the strokes and balance of the different parts of each characters, and how the different characters in one's name relate to each other. (It is kind of like reading tea leaves.) 

There was an elderly Mandarin teacher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Yale-in-China Language Centre that Alan attended from 1975 to 1976 who had that ability. He was often sought after to accompany people to the horse races because he could pick the winner based on the horse's name. He did an analysis of Alan's name once. Alan doesn't remember the details, other than he said it was a very good and deeply meaningful name. (If I ever find my diary with the details, I will add them here. -- Alan)

For more on Chinese names, see this BBC article: Why some Chinese believe a name change could improve luck

If you know the Chinese name of anyone mentioned in this family history website, email me <alanalew@gmail.com> and I will add them to this page.

The main reference I used for translations on this page is the CantoDict Project's very useful Cantonese-Mandarin-English Dictionary. Chinese-Tools.com was also helpful. MDGB English-Chinese Dictionary is another good source