the naming of names

[bonibaru]

Readers and writers: I want to write a little bit in Guardian, but I'm struggling with naming convention. Fics themselves seem all over the place. I've scanned back through the group posts at least a few weeks and not found an obvious post so the faster thing to do is just ask here.

Is it correct to refer to the characters by surname only (Zhao, Shen, Guo, Chu, Zhu etc) or by first name only (Yunlan, Wei) or always by full name (Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei, Shu Hong) or a mix depending on context? I read that this can be context-dependent and I just want to be consistent without jarring the eyeballs of anyone trying to read.

For some reason I have no problem writing out Shen Wei every time but I keep wanting to default to just writing Yunlan (when he is POV character) and writing Zhao Yunlan *every* time feels like overkill, lol. And I want to call Guo and Chu just that but I keep writing out Lin Jing every time too. Is it because 2 syllables feels better? Augh. Halp me do better.

Comments

[asya_ana]

Generally speaking, you should always use the full name. However, intimates can use first names only. If the first name is one syllable, that doesn't "feel comfortable" for Chinese speakers, so another syllable is often added. I would also note that it's totally common and normal for even intimates to use the full name in everyday contexts.

Some people will also have nicknames for each other that are less intimate, such as Xiao Guo (little Guo) or Lao Chu (old Chu).

I know it feels weird to an English speaker to use the longer names constantly, but to read just the last name sounds very weird in Chinese.

[naye]

OH I FEEL YOU SO MUCH. I have spent hours of my life dithering about this, pestering my Chinese-speaking wife and my fabulous beta and random friends...

Last + First name is actually the best, I think? Unless you're writing Zhao Yunlan in close enough third person (or intimate enough situation) that first only could do. (Possibly this is true for other characters with longer first names? But "Wei" would feel super weird.)

...and yeah, I started writing feeling like you did, that writing "Zhao Yunlan" felt like overkill. Because in English, it would be! I mean, imagine reading "Harry Potter" instead of "Harry" - English doesn't work like that. But because naming conventions in Chinese do work like that... it starts to feel more natural?

(And then using just "Zhao" feels unnatural and you go back and edit all 50k words of published fic and your entire draft, cursing your life and your choices ----oh wait no that's just me. Whoops! But nobody commented on the change, which I take to mean that readers have come to expect full names throughout.)

Personally, I switch from "Zhao Yunlan" to "Yunlan" in really intimate situations - but only in my long fic. Even in smut I find it easier to pick one and stick with it than change back and forth.

[trobadora]

(And then using just "Zhao" feels unnatural and you go back and edit all 50k words of published fic and your entire draft, cursing your life and your choices

Haha, OMG, I feel you. But it's fascinating to me that your feelings on that use changed enough for you to edit your entire WIP!

[naye]

Yeeeeaahhhh, it started with discussions with my beta about particular paragraphs, and where to use Zhao and where to use Zhao Yunlan and then turned into such regret that I hadn't just used "Zhao Yunlan" all the way through that I had a hard time looking at the posted chapters without feeling they were all wrong. Fortunately all my Shen Wei POV had "Zhao Yunlan" straight through already. But I still spent quite a while making sure I'd gotten it all without messing up those "Chief Zhao" and "Lao Zhao" that should stay in.

[qikiqtarjuaq]

Yeah. I didn't even realize names could bother me until I ran into people going "Zhao", "Wei", and "Shen" and my brain just went: oh no.

The two syllable rule of thumb works better than "first names" vs "last names" here as opposed to Western conventions!

For me, the biggest thing to throw me out of a work is calling them by their last names only - e.g. Zhao, Shen, Chu, Guo. I have a really hard time with the Guardian translation because of this. In general, last names should accompany either a title (Prof. Shen, Chief Zhao) or have the little/old monicker appended to it (Xiao Guo, Lao Chu, Lao Zhao).

For two syllables first names, I do love Shen Wei thinking of Zhao Yunlan as only "Yunlan" in his head because of how important/close Yunlan is to him. I loved it when Chu Shuzhi called Xiao Guo "Changcheng" in the show. It marked a real turning point in their relationship IMO.

But it feels more right to me to do the full Zhao Yunlan if I'm writing a close Zhao Yunlan POV instead because he doesn't use a nickname to think of himself.

For single syllable first names, there's actually an exception if you're writing novel-verse Guardian, because Shen Wei doesn't have the last name "Shen" when he is the small ghost king. He is just Wei. So I'd accept it in those circumstances, even though it still reads awkwardly to me. But otherwise, "Xiao Wei" is a great canonical nickname that made Shen Wei's brain reboot from how much he loved hearing it! Just Shen Wei flows pretty well too IMO.

Other nicknaming conventions (not really applicable to Guardian unless it's Zhao Yunlan being ironic/an annoying little shit): Doubling up on single syllable first names. So, Weiwei for example would sound like the worst kind of nickname you can give anyone in Western culture, but in China, it's super common. My own nickname is like that. Actor Wang Kai calls himself Kaikai on his official Weibo. Someone in an interview actually asked Bai Yu to choose between two different Weiweis. The Weiwei from Love O2O and Shen Wei from Guardian. It was great.

And I think this is more common for women, but there's also the -er suffix.

But yeah, TL;DR - Two syllables or more works best.

[qikiqtarjuaq]

Replying to myself but thinking of the actors, I suddenly remembered: While appending brother/sister like -ge, -jie, -mei to the end of someone's name is a very common thing to do as well, be very careful in Guardian!

Bai Yu calling Zhu Yilong "Long-ge" - A-OKAY. Guo Changcheng calling Chu Shuzhi "Chu-ge" - Awww. How cute.

Zhao Yunlan calling Shen Wei "Wei-ge" - Nooooo. That means viagra.

[galaxysoup]

That is super helpful and also made me ugly laugh. :D

[no_detective]

that is HILARIOUS omg!

[lynndyre]

*undignified snickering and also taking notes*

[mecurtin]

Zhao Yunlan calling Shen Wei "Wei-ge" - Nooooo. That means viagra.

Novel!ZYL, at least, would *totally* do that, you know. Hopefully only in private.

[bonibaru]

But it feels more right to me to do the full Zhao Yunlan if I'm writing a close Zhao Yunlan POV instead because he doesn't use a nickname to think of himself.

This is where I've been struggling. Thank you!

[bonibaru]

Unless you're writing Zhao Yunlan in close enough third person (or intimate enough situation) that first only could do.

This is pretty much what I mean - when writing m/m you can't default to he/him all the time because there are two he/hims at least, lol, so when distinguishing who is doing what in any sentence, I might need to write at least one of their names out. I was just writing Yunlan from the beginning, instead of Zhao Yunlan because he is the POV character. "Yunlan walked across the room and picked up his coat" for example. Not so much "how do people greet each other / address each other" but much more simply, "how do I signify the POV character" .... writing "Shen Wei" seemed to flow very well but writing "Zhao Yunlan" constantly was getting tedious, both to write and to read.

[naye]

.... writing "Shen Wei" seemed to flow very well but writing "Zhao Yunlan" constantly was getting tedious, both to write and to read.

Only because you're not used to the way Chinese names are used yet. Take it from me - I started out thinking exactly the above. But it's shifted to the point where I literally went back and edited 50k of WIP I started posting a couple of months ago because now it feels so wrong to use "Zhao" by itself that I couldn't stand it anymore. I've also used "Zhao Yunlan" all the way through in explicit fic where he's the POV character and nobody has complained, because that's what people on this fandom have come to expect. (I have also used "Yunlan" only for his POV in a one-shot.)

Again: using full name for the POV character feels clunky - but only until you get used to it. Which native speakers already are, and readers in this fandom tend to become. I would seriously advice against using one name only, because I did, and that didn't work out for me in the end despite having very good and logical reasons for it.

[bonibaru]

My WIP is only 5k so I was able to fix it pretty quickly :D thanks!

[naye]

Always glad to let others learn from my mistakes! XD

[jo_lasalle]

I know the feeling and spent some time today asking myself this question.

I'm very comfortable with "Shen Wei" for Shen Wei in his own POV; I'm also comfortable with "Zhao" for Zhao Yunlan's POV, but that might simply be because that's what we call him at our house out loud (once we stopped having to call him "the chief" because we were that terrible at picking out Chinese names) and I'm just used to it. But I read somewhere that one syllable might be too short, so I might have to revise myself.

Watching this space with interest!

[trobadora]

The rule of thumb I go with is "default to full names, use two-syllable given names only in very intimate situations, and never use one-syllable names on their own". That's what I osmosed, anyway, and what the previous fannish discussions have left me with.

ETA: Also, here's a bunch of links on name use (from the resource post):

https://twitter.com/oftenimprudent/status/1027305362335195137
https://naye.dreamwidth.org/2190770.html
https://naye.dreamwidth.org/2191577.html
http://foxghost.tumblr.com/post/178721212308/on-chinese-names

[bonibaru]

That twitter post seems to be locked for me, but someone sent me a threaded doc of it and it is perfect - thank you!

[trobadora]

Huh, that's strange, it loads normally for me! Glad someone got it to you, though.

[lynndyre]

There's a thread from ffa on this that I bookmarked for my own reference here- it starts with a mini argument, but it goes into why single-syllable names don't work for Chinese and why absolutely don't call him 'Wei' because it's also the way you answer the phone.

[galaxysoup]

I have also been defaulting to 'Yunlan' when it's Zhao Yunlan's POV and he's referring to himself in his head, but while I feel pretty solid on a lot of the other naming conventions I admit I'm still unsure about that one in particular.

[bonibaru]

This has been me for 48 hours lol

[kat_lair]

Well, for someone whose resistance to actually writing something is eroding fast, this is super helpful/enabling. Thanks for asking, and thanks for all the commenters for info.

[tinny]

You already got the great links (which you should read, because they go into more detail, like how to append the "-ge" and why not "gege" etc.)

I think naye's one post links pru's twitter thread, but in case it doesn't, here's another direct link:

https://twitter.com/oftenimprudent/status/1027305362335195137


One more thing: the reason behind the fact that one-syllable names sound so weird to Chinese ears is that the language is so context-dependent. You can never, for anything, just use one syllable, because it is not unique. There are only so few syllables (and so many words!), and thus it is impossible to decide on a meaning from just one syllable.

So pretty much all the words are two-syllable (and if they aren't, people will put two syllables with the same meaning together to form a two-syllable word). Unless they're in the context of a sentence and you can infer which "chang" is meant in this particular instance.

That was more confusing than enlightening, wasn't it... sorry?

In summary: Chinese don't like one-syllable things, and that includes names. :)

[bonibaru]

I can't see Pru's Twitter post, which is weird because I can see Pru's stuff everywhere else on the internet, but someone kindly sent it to me so now I have it and it is super helpful :D thanks!

[bonibaru]

I picked up the two-syllable thing just from listening to the audio in the different series I've been following, so that was coming naturally to me - to say Xiao Guo, Lao Chu, and Shen Wei. It's Zhao Yunlan that was giving me most of the trouble, but this post has made me feel a lot better about how to sort it out.

[kurosakiami01]

This thread is so interesting and so useful! I've just finished the drama (and read the translation of the novel) and this is the first Cdrama/fandom I've ever gotten into, so naming conventions are all over the place for me. Now I can go on writing my first fanfic in this fandom with a little more confidence xD