Help with Chinese middle name spelling

AppleMuffins

My husband and I are an interracial couple. We have chosen an American first name, but we let MIL choose the middle name as it's custom for Chinese grandparents to name the baby AND dh is not that fluent in Chinese anymore. A Chinese name is made by using two characters from their language (as opposed to our letters), plus the family name. Obviously, we can't use Chinese characters on a birth certificate in America so we have to figure out how to spell her name in English. The name is pronounced like gah yee, but it's more typical, from what I've been told, to spell it with a K and not a G when putting it in English. I'm not really sure why, but we're definitely going this route since her name could be twisted into "gay" by mean spirited kids if we spell it with a G.

So now we're trying to finalize how we want to spell it. We're know for sure that we're going to list it as one word on the birth certificate for simplicity (even though it is actually two words in Chinese) though we might capitalize the firs letter of the 2nd word. I personally want to spell it Kahyee because I feel like it would help my relatives get closer to the correct pronunciation, and anyone else who was simply reading her name, especially since it will already be a bit off since it's Gah and not Kah. Dh prefers Kayee, but I feel like in English it would end up turing into "kay-ee" and it reminds me of Kanye... He says Kahyee doesn't look Chinese (but I've googled the name and found lots of them spelled that way), but since I'm not Chinese and don't know the language at all, other than Googling I can't really say. It seems Chinese to me though. I also like it as Kahyi, but dh doesn't like the i much. What do you guys think?

We're definitely not trying to be unique in our spelling or anything, but there's just no official translation from Chinese characters to the English alphabet so we just have to go phonetically.

NerdyLucy

 

 

As this is a language translation issue, I really have no education/knowledge this kind of thing, BUT I voted Kahyi as I feel like it still has the Kah-yee pronunication, but still looks like a name. 

 

jyoung01

I know you didn't want two words, but I like the idea of Kah Ye or maybe Kai Ye (though the latter probably isn't quite right pronunciation-wise).  Separating the two pieces feels more Chinese to me and the name doesn't look as made up.

AppleMuffins

jyoung01 said:

I know you didn't want two words, but I like the idea of Kah Ye or maybe Kai Ye (though the latter probably isn't quite right pronunciation-wise).  Separating the two pieces feels more Chinese to me and the name doesn't look as made up.

Thanks for the input. We're doing one name based on experiences Dh and SIL have had where it's confusing on legal documents and such when it's split into two. Granted, their first name is two names so that makes it trickier than a middle name, but we still find this the simplest option. LO is also going to have our very traditional Chinese last name, so if people read her whole name and still think we're making up the middle name, I think it's just because they weren't exposed to any Chinese names before. It's not likely to be an issue where we live. Plus she'll probably look Chinese.

jnnfrrose6

I don't understand how DH can say Kahyee "doesn't look Chinese" when you said at the beginning he's not fluent anymore.  Seems like he wouldn't be the one to decide if it "looks" Chinese at this point (if he just doesn't like it, that's fine, but his reasoning doesn't make sense).

FWIW, I like that spelling with your reasoning.

Scarlett&Gatsby

NerdyLucy said:

 

 

As this is a language translation issue, I really have no education/knowledge this kind of thing, BUT I voted Kahyi as I feel like it still has the Kah-yee pronunication, but still looks like a name. 

 

I agree. The double E's throw me off.

AppleMuffins

jnnfrrose6 said:

I don't understand how DH can say Kahyee "doesn't look Chinese" when you said at the beginning he's not fluent anymore.  Seems like he wouldn't be the one to decide if it "looks" Chinese at this point (if he just doesn't like it, that's fine, but his reasoning doesn't make sense).

FWIW, I like that spelling with your reasoning.

He's not fluent (according to him), but he knows a lot, and he has also known many Chinese people. He's had a lot of exposure basically, but can't always translate things. Basically in the same way that we can see a word or a name that maybe we can't pronounce, it might still look English to us. Or we could see a word in French and we might have no idea what the word means and not speak a lick of French, but it still definitely looks French from our exposure to other French words we've seen.

KatFCo

Kahyee doesn't look Chinese at all, so if you want a name that reflects the baby's Chinese heritage, I vote Kayi, especially if Ka Yi isn't a direction you want to go. I think KaYi would be forever confusing people as to why there was a random capital letter in the middle of the name.  

 

What does the name mean, by the way? There are different pronunciation guides, so maybe another one might be able to provide something else.

AppleMuffins

Gah is fortunate/lucky and Yee is happy (dh is the one who wants Yee. I wanted Yi or Ye at first, so I find it ironic that people think the Yee doesn't look Chinese considering his comments). I was trying to use Google translate to help and I did find a Yi for happy, but couldn't find anything close to gah for lucky. I don't think we can change the pronunciation though, since this is what MIL picked, even if it does have the same meaning.

If anyone knows any resources other than Google translate for Chinese words, I'd be happy to check it out! It's difficult because they speak Cantonese and most things I find are for Mandarin.

KatFCo

AppleMuffins said:

Gah is fortunate/lucky and Yee is happy (dh is the one who wants Yee. I wanted Yi or Ye at first, so I find it ironic that people think the Yee doesn't look Chinese considering his comments). I was trying to use Google translate to help and I did find a Yi for happy, but couldn't find anything close to gah for lucky. I don't think we can change the pronunciation though, since this is what MIL picked, even if it does have the same meaning.

If anyone knows any resources other than Google translate for Chinese words, I'd be happy to check it out! It's difficult because they speak Cantonese and most things I find are for Mandarin.

I studied a bit of Chinese and from what I remember and have found from a quick search, I can't find any Chinese words ka or yi that mean those things. Does your MIL speak Cantonese? Would you be able to copy and paste the characters?

AppleMuffins

MIL does speak Cantonese (and very little English). I'll try to get the characters later tonight when we have dinner with her.

It's also possible that I'm hearing "gah" wrong and thus pronouncing it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time, though in this case they told me I was saying it right (or at least close enough). SIL said it's often spelled Kar, but I'm definitely not putting the r in there.

edit: This is the Google translate character I found for happy where they describe it as Yi 怡 Not sure if it's the one MIL has in mind though because there a lot of options.

Barbercharm

IMO, Kahyi makes me want to think the name is Kathy, but auto-correct messed something up. I think KaYee or KahYee looks the closest to traditional (English spelled) Chinese names.