Ryan's Chinese Name

After much consultation with Chinese name books, dictionaries, and family, Ryan finally has a Chinese name. I have provided the pinyin so you can pronounce it. For those of you who are not familiar with Mandarin Chinese, let me give you a brief introduction. First, as far as names go, the family name comes first. 柏 (bo2) is the Chinese equivalent of Bow. It does not mean bow, but sounds pretty close (when you say it in Chinese it sounds more like "bwoh"). The number represents the tone. In Mandarin there are 4 tones. Tone #1 is a high tone that neither rises nor falls. Tone #2 is a rising tone, like when you say a word at the end of a question. Tone #3 is falling and then rising, and sometimes changes to a second tone when in front of another 3rd tone. Tone #4 is a falling tone, like if you were to say a command like "don't!"

柏 (bo2) means cypress tree, 彥 (yan4) means talented or worthy and 輔 (fu3) means to assist. I wanted to call him 柏拉圖 (bo2 la1 tu2) as that is the Chinese name for Plato, but no one else seemed to think that was a very wise idea.

After this lesson, you should now be able to say:

柏彥輔, 你好!
bo2 yan4 fu3, ni3 hao3!
Hello Ryan Bow (Hello talented tree assistant!)