Man i think it's extremely rare i wonder if anybody knows someone with a double character surname?

Yes, on television.

When I was in Taipei, I went to elementary school with a guy named 歐陽 Ouyang.

My ex-gf( ) was 上官

nguyen.....<<that is the most horrible surname ever. no one can pronounce it correctly without asking someone first! how the hell do u frikkin say it man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

agreed. it is ugly sounding. if you write it in Chinese, it is 阮

In Chinese, it's easy; "ruan" in Mandrin and "Yun" in Cantonese

ohh thank you! but..its pretty stupid to put it as nguyen when clearly they could have just spelt it as yun or ruan!

my classmate is 司徒
one of my childhood friends is 欧阳

I think only vietnamese spell their name "Nguyen"

But it actually keeps the Tang pronounciation... unlike Mandarin o.o

Nguyen is the Tang pronouncation? Since when?

Because Sino-Vietnamese keeps more sounding of Tang and Middle Chinese more than Mandarin.

That's true, but i don't think Nguyen is the actual Tang pronouncation.

but i dont get why people spell it nguyen when it doesnt sound like what it is in english :S lol oh well this will just be stuck in my head forever

lol back at my old high school, if you yelled "ngyuen" in the lunch room,20 people would turn around

Seto is a 2 word Chinese name.. sounds kinda like Japanese though...

i think it is... Japanese surnames are made out of 2 characters.

Yun or Ruan doesn't even sound like how we Viets pronounce it. There's no improvement whatsoever.




It's not an english name, so why would it have to make sense in English? It's Vietnamese, there are tone marks and such, factor those in and you can read it properly. Don't think about it too much, there are better things to keep your mind busy on than how to pronounce someone's last name.

Especially in wuxia series. I think they sound pretty cool like Murong Fu and Ouyang Feng.

also.. simaH, DungFong ,,,ngauyeung

wtf is ngauyeung

Ahh never mind, i think they spell it ouyang? but pronounce it ngauyeung ..

it's pronounced ouyang

I assume you speak mandarin??

Yes, and we're supposed to use Mandarin pronunciation to prevent further confusion on this forum.

Fine, I guess that keeps me out,, at least for now

There is Auyeung, Szeto and in Young and Dangerous 6 I think (or the latest one)...there was a scene where Ekin Cheng and Gigi Lai was in Taiwan having coffee and Gigi Lai said her surname was 代木 and claimed she was pure CHinese and how most people thought she was Japanese and apparently that is a Chinese surname, however, I have never heard of it before.

With the Nguyen thing, please refrain from trying to say its a "horrible" surname, it creates flame wars. One can easily ask how to pronounce Ng (吳 or 伍) in Cantonese. Nguyen actually sounds something like "ng-weing". that (-) is like a short silence.

Anyway, I heard that in ancient China, people had 4 character named (surname included) is this true?

It's interesting to note that Mongolians and Japanese have four character names whilst Koreans, modern Chinese and Vietnamese have three.

That's possible. Two character surname with a two character given name.

lot people have two surname over at mongol and tibet

We're talking about surnames mainly used by Hans. You can dig out as many as multi-character surnames you want in Mongol, Manchu, Tibetan, Qidan, Evenks, Orochins....etc.