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

[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.