Type your name in Latin or Cyrillic letters. You get the form Chinese speakers customarily use, a sound-by-sound version, and a Chinese-style name with a meaning you choose - each with pinyin, meanings and audio.
Show my Chinese name
A Chinese name puts the family name first. Most surnames are one character, and the given name that follows has one or two characters, so most names are two or three characters long in total.
Foreign names are written by sound. Chinese has a fixed set of characters for this, and each sound is always written the same way, so a name keeps the same form everywhere it appears. Characters chosen this way are picked for their sound; their meaning matters little inside the name.
In a foreign full name the given name comes first, as in the original, and a middle dot separates it from the surname.
A Chinese-style name works differently: a real Chinese surname plus a given name chosen for its meaning. That is what Chinese teachers often give their students, and what many people living in China use day to day.
These names are a fun starting point, not an official translation. Before you use one on documents, a tattoo or a business card, ask a native speaker - a good name depends on context the generator cannot see.
The zodiac year begins at Chinese New Year, in late January or February - add your birthday if you were born early in the year.
All 12 animals explained
Type it above. If your name is common, you get its customary Chinese form first; otherwise the generator spells it sound by sound with the characters Chinese normally uses for foreign names. Practise writing it with the stroke-order animation, then print a sheet.
No. It is a fun, carefully made starting point. Official names in China (for a visa or a work permit, say) follow the authorities' own rules, and a name for a business or a tattoo deserves a check by a native speaker.
A transliteration copies the sound of your name, so it is usually three or more characters long and its characters mean little together. A Chinese-style name has a Chinese surname and one or two given-name characters chosen for their meaning.
Several characters can carry the same sound, and some names reached Chinese through different languages: Elena from Russian and from Spanish, for example, are written differently. The customary form is the one you are most likely to see.
Enter your birth year. The zodiac year starts at Chinese New Year, which moves between 21 January and 20 February, so if you were born in January or February add your birthday too.
Yes. Characters meaning death, illness, misfortune or insults are blocked, and every character is shown with its meaning so you can judge it yourself.
Enable JavaScript to use the full app.