Thursday, February 14, 2008

Chinese Ainscough

Just having a little fun here......
ever wondered what Ainscough would look like in Chinese???

AINSCOUGH

Just so you know Im not making it up visit the chinesenames.org website for more info.
http://www.chinesenames.org/name-translation/a/a09.htm

But Ed Ainscough over in Perth, Aus. adds this warning to those of you thinking of using this for business purposes......

On 14 Feb 2008, at 22:54, Ainscough, Ed wrote:
"No worries, went there and checked it out. I hired a Chinese accountant here in the office a few years ago as we work in China a lot, I'll get her to validate it and compare against my Mandarin version business card..

FYI - There are two common ways Western co.s seek to translate names into Chinese. Our business cards, which have a Mandarin version of our details on the back, are simply phonetic translations i.e. you tell them how you pronounce your name and they give you the symbols for the words that most closely match that sound. However the words are often meaningless combinations and you get very strange looks when you are introduced as Edmund Ainscough when the closest "sounding " mandarin symbols for those sounds could be "toilet cow sky".
I prefer to move to translating what our surnames mean, as is the point of the process in the first place I guess - so Edmund Ainscough for example would be "Blessed Protector Oakwood". When I revealed this to our Mandarin lady, she had not realised that our names originally meant things too, she gave me a wonderful translation of the name that she said was a very auspicious name and would gain much positive comment in China, as the symbols for blessed or rich, protector and wood were very auspicious in their own right, and she said, would make much more sense to a local than "toilet cow sky".
So be warned everyone if you were going to tattoo these symbols on your forearm - let me get Liang Xi here to make sure they do not mean something that you would never tattoo on any part of your body!!!!"

E
E.J. Ainscough :Gold Fields Ltd - Western Australia.

Well its not as bad as Ed makes out afterall.....Alston.Huang - a Chinese Flickr comrade has sent the Chinese meaning of the symbols, which I think is rather good but I guess it all depends on how you want to interpret it!
On 23 Feb 2008, at 09:16, Flickr Mail wrote:
alston.huang says:
"HiHi,
Is that your last name ? I can give you the meaning of each symbol of your last name in Chinese.
安 - safety
斯 - this
克 - overcome
夫 - man

I am not sure if you can read the chinese characters or not. Any way, it is in the order from left to the right on your picture.

or the translation for "Oak Wood" (believed to be the true meaning of the name "Ainscough" is written as...

alston.huang Flickr User says:


Oak wood 橡木
forest 森林
Oak forest 橡木林

1 comment:

Graham Jones said...

I'm researching the life and work of Henry Ainscough (c1850 - 1923) organ builder of Preston. Can anyone put me in touch with someone who can help me? I would be very grateful.
All the best,
Graham Jones