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I have so much with trouble finding Chinese names it's beyond shameful. I always worry about the name sounding nonsensical or just evoking the feeling of "say what? O_o"

Anyways, I'll have to trouble everyone again & ask...

Do these names sound good for a male character in a fantasy chinese novel? Are they correct?

"远宁"

"温宁"

"文宁"

"玟宁"

If you hadn't noticed, I really like the character "宁", so if you have better male names that end with "宁", please let me know!

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    Please confirm that you're talking about 寧 (níng). As a Traditional Chinese character (and thus if this character is encountered in olden-day names), 宁 is pronounced zhù.
    – dROOOze
    Jun 26, 2019 at 21:51
  • ancient Chinese usually use single character first name. Upper-class people would have a two characters courtesy name
    – Tang Ho ♦
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:39
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    @droooze We would read 宁 as ning2 even it is used in some ancient person's name, as most of us never know that it can be pronounced as zhu4. Also, ancient people with names that have 寧 would be written as 宁 now, so it is safe to read it as ning2. This may only matter if some scholar is reading some real historic document.
    – fefe
    Jun 27, 2019 at 6:11
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    @fefe 寧 is still written as 寧 now. Maybe in Simplified Chinese regions the habits are different, but you're presuming that someone is digging up historical documents which are written in Simplified Chinese. Well, those have huge orthographic transcription problems and are generally untrustworthy, which is why 中華書局 still properly publishes them in orthodox script. In a trustworthy historical document, 宁 is likely pronounced as zhù.
    – dROOOze
    Jun 27, 2019 at 6:28
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    @drooze 寧 has already been simplified to 宁 in mainland China.
    – fefe
    Jun 27, 2019 at 8:01

2 Answers 2

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There's a webpage http://name.renren.com/ where you can input Chinese names and get statistics. As names by themselves:

  1. 远宁: 人人网上姓名为 远宁 的用户共有 26人，其中 女生42.31%， 男生57.69%
  2. 温宁: 人人网上姓名为 温宁 的用户共有 563人，其中 女生50.62%， 男生49.38%
  3. 文宁: 人人网上姓名为 文宁 的用户共有 543人，其中 女生52.85%， 男生47.15%
  4. 玟宁: no hits

and if we append a random surname, say 李 or 王:

  1. 李远宁: 人人网上姓名为 李远宁 的用户共有 40人，其中 女生52.50%， 男生47.50%
  2. 李温宁: 人人网上姓名为 李温宁 的用户共有 2人，其中 女生0.00%， 男生100.00%
  3. 李文宁: 人人网上姓名为 李文宁 的用户共有 267人，其中 女生63.67%， 男生36.33%

  4. 李玟宁: no hits

  5. 王远宁: 人人网上姓名为 王远宁 的用户共有 42人，其中 女生26.19%， 男生73.81%

  6. 王温宁: 人人网上姓名为 王温宁 的用户共有 3人，其中 女生100.00%， 男生0.00%
  7. 王文宁: 人人网上姓名为 王文宁 的用户共有 281人，其中 女生57.65%， 男生42.35%
  8. 王玟宁: no hits

Clearly 玟宁 is a poor choice. Also 温 is interpreted as a surname. It seems 文宁 is the most reasonable from the list.

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These are all good names.

宁 means peaceful and calm. So it's pretty convenient to match other characters.

温 and 宁 basically means the same thing: calm, peaceful, mild and gentle.

文 doesn't mean particular things as an individual character, but would mean almost the same as 温 when combining with 宁. The difference is that 温 is more explicit while 文 is more implicit. I'd go with 文.

As for 玟, it's NOT a poor choice. Actually I think it's the best choice among your choices! 玟 means jade, and jade represents virtue in Chinese. Some other jade characters are 璧 瑗 瑾 瑜 璞 璇 璿 琳 琅 玕 珞 珩 琼 瑶 琨 琛 瑛 珏 珉 琦 琬 琰 珲 璐 珅 珣 琪 玮... I don't need to list them all, because you can see that they're very very popular in Chinese names, no matter today or thousands years ago. But relatively 玟 is less common than 文 and 温, so as a name it would clearly stands out.

远 means far away as a single character, but with 宁 it can be saw as long time or long term. Pretty good with peaceful right?

I'd go with 玟, and 远 would be my second choice.

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