Most common baby names in China, 2020

Posted on Monday, June 5, 2023 by Pinyin Info

What were the most common names for newborn babies in China in 2020?

Please note that some names appear more than once (Yichen three times in the top 10 for boys, and Yinuo and Yutong twice in the top 10 for girls). The only differences are in some of the characters used.

Most common names for newborn boys in China, 2020

Rank	Chinese characters	Pinyin (with tone marks)	Pinyin (without tone marks)
1	奕辰	Yìchén	Yichen
2	宇轩	Yǔxuān	Yuxuan
3	浩宇	Hàoyǔ	Haoyu
4	亦辰	Yìchén	Yichen
5	宇辰	Yǔchén	Yuchen
6	子墨	Zǐmò	Zimo
7	宇航	Yǔháng	Yuhang
8	浩然	Hàorán	Haoran
9	梓豪	Zǐháo	Zihao
10	亦宸	Yìchén	Yichen

Most common names for newborn girls in China, 2020

Rank	Chinese characters	Pinyin (with tone marks)	Pinyin (without tone marks)
1	一诺	Yīnuò	Yinuo
2	依诺	Yīnuò	Yinuo
3	欣怡	Xīnyí	Xinyi
4	梓涵	Zǐhán	Zihan
5	语桐	Yǔtóng	Yutong
6	欣妍	Xīnyán	Xinyan
7	可欣	Kěxīn	Kexin
8	语汐	Yǔxī	Yuxi
9	雨桐	Yǔtóng	Yutong
10	梦瑶	Mèngyáo	Mengyao

I tried using ChatGPT again to clean up the HTML in the tables above. But it kept hallucinating and changing characters, and it never gave me the entire tables but cut off at least one row each time. So I cleaned up the code myself in a text editor.

Source: 《2020 nián quánguó xìngmíng bàogào》 fābù (《二〇二〇年全国姓名报告》发布), Gōng’ānbù wǎngzhàn (公安部网站), February 2, 2021

Gwoyeu Romatzyh on Taiwan buses

Posted on Thursday, May 18, 2023 by Pinyin Info

Although in posts mentioning Gwoyeu Romatzyh I often note that romanization system can be seen in the wild in Taiwan most often on the sides of coach buses, I haven’t put online many examples of this. So here’s an image-heavy post with some examples of photos I’ve taken of the Gwoyeu Romatzyh romanization system on buses in Taiwan.

The captions give the Gwoyeu Romatzyh, along with the Hanyu Pinyin (with and without tone marks) in parentheses.

Herng Chuen (Héngchūn/Hengchun)

Wuu Feng (Wǔfēng/Wufeng)

Diing Dong (Dǐngdōng/Dingdong)

Shin Shinn (Xīnxìn/Xinxin)

Jin Shii (Jīnxǐ/Jinxi)

Jiann Fa (Jiànfā/Jianfa)

Shuenn Yih (Shùnyì/Shunyi)

If you ever find yourself stuck on how to pronounce English

Posted on Sunday, May 7, 2023 by Pinyin Info

It’s times like this I especially miss John DeFrancis. How he would have loved this! It’s partially an example of what he dubbed “Singlish” — not Singapore English but Sino-English, the tortured attempt to use Chinese characters to write English. He details this in “The Singlish Affair,” a shaggy dog story that serves as the introduction to his essential work: The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. (And I really do mean essential. If you don’t have this book yet, buy it and read it.)

Here are some lyrics from a popular song, “Count on Me,” by Bruno Mars, with a Mandarin translation. The interesting part is that a Taiwanese third-grader has penciled in some phonetic guides for him or herself, using a combination of zhuyin fuhao (aka bopo mofo) (sometimes with tone marks!), English (as a gloss for English! and English pronunciation of some letters and numbers), and Chinese characters (albeit not always correctly written Chinese characters — not that I could do any better myself). Again, this is a Taiwanese third-grader and so is someone unlikely to know Hanyu Pinyin.

“If you ever find yourself stuck”

If	ㄧˊㄈㄨˊ	yífú
you
ever	ㄟㄈㄦ	ei-f’er
find	5	five
yourself	Uㄦㄒㄧㄦㄈㄨ	U’er xi’erfu
stuck	ㄙ打可	s-dake

“I’ll be the light to guide you.”

I’ll	ㄞㄦ	ài’er
be	ㄅㄧ	bi
the	ㄌ	l[e]
light	賴特*	laite
to	兔	tu
guide	蓋	gai
you	you	you

“Find out what we’re made of”

Find	ㄈㄞˋ	fài
out	ㄠㄊㄜ	ao-t’e
what	花得	huade
we’re	ㄨㄧㄚ	wi’a
made	妹的	meide
of	歐福	oufu

“When we are called to help our friends in need”

~~What~~ when	花	hua
we	ㄨㄧ	wi
are	ㄚ	a
called	扣	kou
to	兔	tu
help	嘿ㄜㄆ	hei’e-p[e]
our	ㄠㄦ	ao’er
friends	ㄈㄨㄌㄣˇ的ㄙ	fulen-de-s
in	硬	ying
need	[?]	[?]

Tone marks on Taiwan store sign’s Pinyin

Posted on Monday, April 10, 2023 by Pinyin Info

An observant reader sent in this relatively rare example in Taiwan of the use of Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks on signage

The Pinyin and especially the tone marks are a little thin, so I’ll give a closeup view:

The sign, here in aesthetic Banqiao, of course, reads:

Dǐ jiā
㭽佳心靈美學館
Esthetic Nail Salon

(Dǐ jiā xīnlíng měixué guǎn)

The Pinyin is not just “esthetic,” because most people probably don’t know the character ‘㭽’. Although they could probably take an educated guess that 㭽 is pronounced dǐ because of the 氐, that’s not the same thing as knowing for sure. So the Pinyin comes in handy even for most literate Taiwanese — if they can see it.

What’s especially surprising is that the people at the store went with Pinyin instead of zhuyin fuhao: ㄉㄧㄐㄧㄚ.

Pinyin-friendly display faces at Google Fonts

Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2018 by Pinyin Info

As of January 9, 2018, Google Fonts had 848 font families, 183 of which are display faces. Of those, the following 20 can handle Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks.

Arima Madurai

Baloo (Note: The various Baloo fonts all look the same for Latin letters; they differ only in which Indian script they also cover.)
- Baloo Bhai
- Baloo Bhaijaan
- Baloo Bhaina
- Baloo Chettan
- Baloo Da
- Baloo Paaji
- Baloo Tamma
- Baloo Tammudu
- Baloo Thambi
Bungee

Bungee Hairline

Bungee Inline

Bungee Outline

Bungee Shade

Chonburi

Farsan

Lalezar

Lobster

Pinyin-friendly handwriting faces at Google Fonts

Posted on Friday, January 12, 2018 by Pinyin Info

As of January 9, 2018, Google Fonts had 848 font families, 80 of which are handwriting faces. Of those, just 3 can handle Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks.

Dekko (Caveat: Although Dekko handles some seldom-seen diacritics, it doesn’t deal well with curved apostrophes or quotation marks, so use it with caution.)