During my time in Malaysia, my ex gave me a Chinese name "尼诺" (Nínuò), which was written with simplified Chinese characters, because they're common there. It was just a phonetic spelling of my real name "Nino" and I really liked the name, because it was easy to pronounce/write and it was as close as it gets to my real name. Then I met my current girlfriend, who is from Taiwan and they proudly use traditional characters. Initially I still wrote my name as "尼诺", because at that time I found the simplified characters are easier for me to learn and write. After few months in Taiwan, I completely changed my opinion and now I love traditional Chinese characters (who make more sense to me) and can laugh at some of the simplified ones. That's why I started to write my name in the traditional way as "尼諾".
But Taiwanese really pay great attention to the meaning of the name and my girlfriend told me that "尼" (Ní) means "Buddhist nun", while "諾" (Nuò) means "promise". So I would be "Promise of a Buddhist nun". I had to chuckle at that and didn't really mind it, but my girlfriend insisted to find a better and more suitable name for me. I said ok, but try to find something, that will still sound similar to Nino. And after a while she found a great character and gave me my new name: "寧諾" (Nìngnuò). Of course I was curious about the first character 寧 and she told me it means "peace or peaceful". So now I am "Peaceful promise". Yay, that sounds way better. And I like the character's components:
寧 (peaceful):
宀 (mián) = roof, cover
心 (xīn) = heart, mind, soul
皿 (mǐn) = shallow container, such as plate
丁 (dīng) = male adult
Associative Compound (src.): Where heart 心 is at home 宀 with food 皿 on the table 丁.
So, my new Chinese name is 寧諾 (Nìngnuò), but you can call me 寧 (Nìng).
Peace, yo! ☮
What does your Chinese name mean, if you have one?
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