About Chinese For Real

Your Chinese name

Chinese names are not translations. A Chinese name has a surname of one character and a given name of one or two characters, chosen for their meaning and how they sound together. We pick a surname that echoes your English surname (or use your own, if it is already Chinese), choose names from the style you picked that fit the words you chose, and also show how your English name is written in Chinese by sound alone.

Checked by a native speaker

Names are picked from a fixed list that a native speaker has checked one by one, not made up by AI on the spot. The surnames and the rules for matching them are checked the same way.

Rank China

Rank Chinese street food, zodiac signs, cities and more with this-or-that choices, and learn the characters, pinyin and sound of each item as you go.

Credits

Stroke order animations use Hanzi Writer (MIT license) with character data from the Make Me a Hanzi project, available under the Arphic Public License.

Name cards use the Ma Shan Zheng brush font (SIL Open Font License).

Pronunciation is voiced with AI by Tingting (听听), the host of Chinese For Real.

Follow along

New names and words every week on TikTok (@chinese.for.real) and YouTube (@chineseforreal).