Chinese Name Generator
Type your name and get Chinese names built the way a teacher builds one for a student: a real family name chosen to echo the sound of your own, then given-name characters chosen for what they mean. Every character is explained in English, so you always know what you are agreeing to. It runs entirely in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
How a Chinese name is put together
Chinese names run family name first, given name second, which is the reverse of English. The family name is nearly always a single character drawn from a few hundred that have been in use for centuries, so it is chosen rather than invented. The given name is one or two characters and is where the meaning lives. Parents pick characters for what they say: brightness, resolve, grace, a season, a mountain. Nothing is capitalised, nothing is hyphenated, and there is no middle name.
That structure is why a good Chinese name for a foreigner is not a translation. There is no Chinese word for Emily. What there is instead is a family name that starts with a sound close to yours, and given-name characters whose meaning suits you.
How this generator chooses
The family name is matched by sound. Your surname is reduced to the consonant it begins with, and that sound is mapped to the Chinese family names that carry it, so Carter can become 康 (Kāng), 柯 (Kē) or 高 (Gāo), and Brooks can become 白 (Bái) or 包 (Bāo). The first character of the given name echoes the start of your first name when a character with a fitting meaning happens to have the right sound, and is left alone when none does. Forcing every syllable to match is what produces transliterations rather than names.
The given name is then chosen from the meaning you pick, and the second character is drawn from the same theme so the two read as one idea rather than two unrelated words. A few results are thrown away before you ever see them: names that repeat a syllable, names where all three syllables land on the same tone, and combinations that create an unfortunate homophone. 吴 sounds exactly like 无, meaning without, so 吴德 would read as without virtue.
What this tool cannot do
It does not know you, and naming is personal. It also works from a curated list of roughly 130 family names and 150 given-name characters, which is a fraction of what is actually in use. The homophone check catches the traps we know about, not every one that exists, and a combination can be perfectly correct while still sounding dated, or like a character in a soap opera, in a way only a native speaker will hear.
So use it the way it is meant to be used. Generate a shortlist, pick the two or three you like, and ask a Chinese friend, teacher or colleague what they think before you put one on a business card. That conversation is usually a pleasure for both of you, and it is a much better first impression than a name nobody has checked.
Learn to write the name you choose
Being able to write your own name by hand is the single most useful piece of Chinese you can learn early, and it is usually the first thing anyone asks you to do. Every name here has a Practise writing it button that sends its characters straight to our free Chinese character worksheet generator, which prints stroke-order steps and tracing squares you can work through. If a character in your name is part of HSK 3.0 you can also tap it to open its character page, with stroke order, components and example words, or browse the full HSK 3.0 character lists.
Saying your name correctly
A name is only as good as your ability to say it. The tones matter as much as the sounds: mā and mǎ are different words, not different accents. If the tone marks above are new to you, start with our beginner's guide to Chinese tones, then use the interactive pinyin chart to hear the syllables in your name spoken on their own.
Questions people ask
How do Chinese names work?
A Chinese name puts the family name first and the given name second, the opposite of the English order. The family name is almost always one character, and the given name is one or two. So 林雅静 is the family name 林 (Lín) followed by the given name 雅静 (Yǎjìng). Chinese people write and say the whole name together, with no middle name and no space.
Is this my real Chinese name?
It is a real Chinese name in the sense that every family name here is one people actually carry, and every given-name character is one that genuinely appears in names. What this tool cannot do is know you. A Chinese friend, teacher or colleague choosing your name would weigh how the characters sound together, what your name says about the person you are, and whether anything about the combination is unlucky. Treat the results as a strong shortlist to bring to a native speaker rather than a finished decision.
Should my Chinese name sound like my English name?
Partly, and only the family name really needs to. The common approach is to pick a Chinese family name that starts with a similar sound to your own surname, then choose given-name characters for their meaning rather than their sound. Names built purely on sound tend to come out as transliterations, which read to Chinese speakers as foreign rather than as names. That is why Smith becomes 施 or 史 rather than 史密斯.
How many characters should a Chinese name have?
Three in total is the most common today: one family name and two given-name characters. Two-character names, with a single-character given name, are also completely normal and slightly more traditional in feel. Both are offered here.
Can I use this name officially?
For a class, a language exchange, a business card in China or a WeChat account, yes. For anything legal, such as a visa, a bank account or a contract, your passport name is what matters, and a Chinese name has no official standing unless it is registered on the document itself.