[name_m]Hi[/name_m] there! I’m currently writing a story and my MC (male, 15,) is half Chinese. He visits family in [name_f]China[/name_f] often, but doesn’t live there full-time. I want an [name_f]English[/name_f] name that has a nickname that sounds like a Chinese name, or at least works in [name_f]China[/name_f]. [name_f]My[/name_f] biggest contender is [name_m]Bowen[/name_m] nicknamed [name_m]Bo[/name_m], but I don’t love it. Does anyone have any suggestions? I was also thinking [name_m]James[/name_m] nicknamed [name_m]Jay[/name_m], but again it doesn’t feel like “the one.” Any help is welcome!
Griffin/Stephen/Stefan nn [name_m]Fen[/name_m]
[name_f][/name_f]John-Jian (not a nickname but could still work)
[name_f][/name_f][name_m]Julian[/name_m]- Ju, [name_m]Jun[/name_m], [name_f]Jin[/name_f]
[name_f][/name_f][name_m]Leo[/name_m]- [name_m]Li[/name_m]
[name_f][/name_f]Dallin/ Linden/Collin/Olin [name_f][/name_f]- [name_f]Lin[/name_f]
Bowen is already both a Chinese and an English name, so it wouldn’t have to be shortened. Jay itself couldn’t be a Chinese nickname (at least in Mandarin) to my knowledge. You could have Jie but that’s not really pronounced similarly.
Most people who are mixed race Chinese (like my daughter) have a separate Chinese and English name. For example, having the English name Peter and the Chinese name Ming Xi. It wouldn’t have to sound alike, but it could. Just wondered if that makes things easier? They could basically call him any Chinese name and it would make sense.
If you still wanted to go down the route of having two names in one, here are a few:
Kai
Li
Dan
Anson → An Sen
Any name ending in Lin → Lin
Any Jo name, i.e. Joseph → Zhou (which is pronounced kinda similar to Joe)
Owen → Wen
Andrew, Anthony → An
Ethan, Ian → Yi (pronounced as EE)
In fact Ian could just be transliterated to Yi An or Yi En as well
ETA: I forgot Xuan Ning or Chen Ning → Channing or Ning. I probably forgot some others as well haha!
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