MY CHINESE NAME, and its meaning.

Article #11

MY CHINESE NAME, "Feng De Huang" 冯德煌

I've noticed a few in LinkedIn regardless of nationality across the world tends to use their nickname in Chinese language for personal reasons; some are Chinese ethnicity however some are not. Mainly I would believe this could be relates to their career locally associated somehow with the Chinese by using Chinese name as an advantage in LinkedIn, as so they believe.

For myself as a Malaysian by nationality, it tends to get surprised by others and confused why we the Malaysians draw lines with their races and religions clearly within the country.

Everytime when I am filling up application forms within Malaysian context, they will ask WHAT IS YOUR RACE AND RELIGION, many at times I felt like I wanted to reply by writing "IT DOESN'T MATTER"

Today, the Malaysian Chinese formed the second largest ethnic group after the Malay majority in the country. Our ancestors mostly were the Chinese immigrants from the southern part of China who arrived in Malaya between the early 19th century and the mid-20th century.

My legal name was written as "FOONG THER HWAN" however according to the modern Chinese name, my name would be written as 冯德煌 "FENG DE HUANG". The reason behind this is because the modern Chinese name is based on the Pinyin pronunciation directly from the formal dictionary context whereas many in the South East Asian countries the Overseas Chinese tends to have name being written and pronounced based on their dialect.

Recently I made some research about the meaning behind each of Chinese characters for my name.

冯 "FENG" or (FOONG) - This is my family name/last name. In the English-speaking world, a surname is commonly referred to as a last name because it is usually placed at the end of a person's full name, after any given names. However in many parts of Asia, the family name is placed before a person's given name. It is character first appeared during 9th in the Chinese Song Dynasty's "Hundred Family Surname" poem and is reported as the 31st most common Chinese last name. The character itself, is made up of the character for "Horse" with an ice radical consisting of two strokes to the left that is meant to suggest "speed or galloping".

德 "De" or (THER) - This is my family generational name. Traditionally, the list of generational names may be decided many generations in advance by the ancestors, an indication for a person's belonging and rank within the Chinese family tree both patriarchal and hierarchical. This character consists of 3 words combined, the word Chi 彳 "footstep/go" with word Zhi 直 "straight" and the word Xin 心 "heart; mind". It is first appeared during China Shang Dynasty (1600 BCE). This special word is the key concept commonly found in many Chinese philosophy, it meant to suggest "moral character; virtue; morality" in Confucianism.

煌 "Huang" or (HWAN) - Not quite sure when was this character first appeared in the history context as the information was too limited to look for. However, this word consists of 火 (fire) and 皇 (royal) which it meant "bright or brilliant".

I came from a very traditional family background, where my late grandfather was origin from Hainan in China. Me and my elder brother both names were handpicked by him and given us the importance lessons of learning Hainanese as the Chinese dialect which is falling out in a fast pace in today society; not many of the younger Chinese generations are able to speak Chinese dialects now. And yes, I can speak well in Hainanese, not to mention in Cantonese and Fujian dialect as well.

The names given to a Chinese baby may reflect the natural world around his/her or aspects of his/her personality, or they may have mystical meanings. Sometimes, the meaning is highly personal and known only to the baby's parents.

Many little known that my elder brother's Chinese name is 冯 德 辉, this Chinese character 辉 "Hui" meant "to shine upon"

I would say it was a brilliant idea to have both our name's last character combined it become "辉煌" (Hui Huang) meaning "glorious".

My late grandfather was not any famous Chinese philosopher but for this case I need to respect him how he foresee the meaning of the name given to both of his grandchildren, it shows he put high interest on his Chinese history although he too, a seafarer by profession; he was a sea-going Chief Engineer onboard vessel trading livestock carrier in the 1960's if I could recall any.

Do let me know if you have known about the Chinese character of your name if you have one. I personally would love to know them as well!

Some questions, nobody answers. There are questions that maybe, nobody knows the answer to. That is the closest answer I could think of at this time of writing.

Thank you for spending your time reading this.

James Foong

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