[floridagirl]

My husband is Chinese and I'm American. Our baby is due in March. We are trying to find a baby name that has a nice meaning in Chinese, but sounds good and is easy to pronounce in English. We need to think of both girl and boy names, since our little one's gender is going to be a surprise. For a boy, I like the name Kai, but he doesn't because he has a cousin with that name who is the blacksheep of the family. Any suggestions?

[economist99]

A lot of mixed marriage expats in Asia use names like Aiya etc
But the vast majority have both an Asian name (unpronouncible to an eng speaker) and a western name. Even Asians all have western or shortened nicknames, even me as none of the chinese speakers could pronounce my english name. It all gets shortened.

If yr husb is chinese doesnt he know which names are simple?

[Gudrun]

Girl:

Yin (love this!)
Mei
Wen (Weni)
Jia
Jian
Lin


Lee
Leo
Chen

[debut dad]

I understand the tradition and trying to keep some of the roots of the family entrenched in the name, but have you considered choosing an English name and a separate Chinese name?

My son's name is Jayden (not very Chinese at all), but we also chose a Chinese name for him, although that isn't officially on his birth certificate, his grandparents call him by his Chinese name (which like others have said, isn't necessarily easily translated to English) and my wife and I do so occasionally as well.

[kpingitquiet]

Most of my Asian friends (mixed and 100%) have a western first name and Asian middle name. Not sure if that helps

[Sunnycat]

I understand the tradition and trying to keep some of the roots of the family entrenched in the name, but have you considered choosing an English name and a separate Chinese name?

My son's name is Jayden (not very Chinese at all), but we also chose a Chinese name for him, although that isn't officially on his birth certificate, his grandparents call him by his Chinese name (which like others have said, isn't necessarily easily translated to English) and my wife and I do so occasionally as well.

This is what we did for my son. He has an Angloish name and then a separate Chinese name which my grandmother and Chinese family call him.

[AvadaKedavra]

Our kids have 'ethnic' first names (from their 'ethnic' mother) and 'Western' surnames (from their 'Western' father). If my surname had been shorter, we would equally happily have given them an ethnic surname and a Western first name.

Personally I think it's important to acknowledge their mixed heritage in their names. I don't think having an unrecorded and unused 'ethnic' name counts, and not did my husband. We know it may only be for one generation, but my heritage is still important to me, and that is reflected in my kids names.

As for pronouncability, I don't really much care. As someone who has lived with and knows a LOT of people with 'difficult' names, we all know it is the problem of the other party if they don't have the respect or decency to try pronouncing your name correctly. One of my kids has a very easy to pronounce name which people still insist on shortening ( even at 3, he is particular about correcting them). My younger has a slightly harder name with an easy ethnically appropriate nickname (which we don't use now, but may down the track).

Our only criteria was choosin something that their father could pronounce correctly, as my language has some sounds that don't exist in English, and my husbands tongue just doesn't make those sounds. So we avoided names with those sounds.

My parents, my sister and I each made lists of names from our heritage and then my husband and I went through them. And just picked a name we liked for each.

Good luck OP.

[naturalista]

Almost all of my Chinese friends go by their English nicknames outside their family here.

One who keeps the same name is Xian (pr. Chen) - for a girl.

[Regular Show]

Popular Chinese Names

[emlis22]

The only ones I can think of that I know are Li for a girl and Shu for a boy. I went to Uni with them both and they didn't have issues that I can recall.