Horoscope and Chinese names
So, what kind of name should someone born in the Year of the Monkey have?
An excellent book for such pointers is Choosing Auspicious Chinese Names by Dr Evelyn Lip, a Singaporean chartered architect, feng shui consultant, writer, artist, interior designer and lecturer on Chinese culture.
She recommends that the Monkey should have names with wood (mu), mountain (shan) and water (shui) in them. After all, it’s quite easy to see how that creature will be quite happy frolicking in the mountain forests next to a bubbling brook! This, incidentally, is also the natural environment for the Tiger.
However, such elements won’t work for those born under other animal signs. Wood (mu), for instance, will “ground” the supernatural Dragon while mountain (shan) implies that the poor Ox has to work doubly hard.
What about the Rat? Lip recommends that the characters for rice grains (mi), beans (dou), rice-field (tian) and wood (mu) be incorporated into their names. And please, avoid characters like knife (dao), fire (huo), stone (shi) and carriage/car (che). The wheels of that last one may just roll over that hapless, scurrying rodent.
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According to Lip, the date and time of a person’s birth will determine his “Eight Characters” (Bazi) horoscope. This will in turn show which of the Five Elements influence his life. The strong point about Choosing Auspicious Chinese Names is that it provides English-educated Chinese with comprehensive tables, lists and even lunar calenders to pinpoint the Bazi, Five Elements etc.
For example, let’s say Mr Tian was gifted with a child on March 10, 1943 at 4am. Using the book’s tables and lists, we can see that the baby would have the birth elements of Wood, Water, Fire and Gold in his Bazi horoscope. Earth is the missing element (from the Five) and that is precisely what needs to be incorporated into baby Tian’s name to give his life balance and completeness.
But it’s not so simple. All Chinese characters are imbued with one of the Five Elements and the surname Tian itself has a fiery spirit. So when the Earth element is brought into the baby’s name, it must be done in a way that harmonises with the Fire surname. The traditional formula recommended by astrologers is Fire-Fire-Earth or Fire-Earth-Gold.
This is because Fire is deemed to “give birth” to Earth (think of a volcano) while Gold is “unearthed” from, well, Earth. Heaven forbid if the name goes Fire-Water-Earth because Water will “extinguish” Fire and “dissolve” Earth into a muddy mess . . . So, like feng shui, deciding on names is all common sense!
Most folks would stop at the Five Elements. For those who want to go even further, Lip explains how to dissect the yin-yang balance (yes, every Chinese character is either yin or yang!) of their child’s proposed name as well as the numerology associated with the number of strokes in the characters.
And that’s not all. English names can also be transcribed into Chinese characters and evaluated with the same methods. For instance, from the extensive list provided, one can see that Jacqueline can be written as Jie Ge Mei (meaning: very charming). The three characters are Yin-Yin-Yang and Fire-Wood-Water. It’s a great combo because Water nourishes Wood (trees) while Wood, in turn, burns to produce Fire.
Why go through all the hassle? According to Dr Lim Chooi Kwa, associate professor of Chinese Studies at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar), traditionally, most Chinese would have all this analysis done by the fortune-teller or temple elder.
But for those who want to do some double checking, or perhaps even some plain old D-I-Y, Lip’s book is a useful guide. It may be tough to juggle the Five Elements, Eight Characters, Yin-Yang and Numerology on top of the Monkey’s needs all at once. But, if you’re a True Believer, nothing may be as important as your child’s name. – By ANDREW SIA
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