Learning Chinese / What's in a Name?

Xiǎo Mǎ

I have recently re-started learning Chinese with Sweewawa, a little each weekend. Just yesterday learned enough to understand that my wife has been calling me the nickname "little horse" (xiǎo mǎ) among her family and friends for years . . . which was a little unsettling but not completely random -- as my american name "Mark" sounds kind of similar to "mǎ". This discovery piqued my interest in researching online about what else these syllables could translate into. Chinese is a fascinating language in that simple syllables can mean vastly different things depending on how you pronounce them. Also, even the same pronunciation can yield different words (as with many English words).

With sometimes subtle differences in tone and accent, "xiao" can translate into: little, young, laugh, military officer, miserable, Chinese mugwort, dawn, night, dwarf bamboo, pan pipes, heaven, sound of rain and wind, easy-going, bombastic, cheerful, elf, roar of a tiger, or long-legged spider.

And the simple two-letter syllable "ma" can translate into:

horse, morphine, mother, hemp, leprosy, headboard, toad, ant, grasshopper, dragonfly, (interrogative final particle), (exclamatory final particle), (pause)

Which got me thinking about the endless combinations. What does my Chinese name really mean? Let's see:

Cheerful leprosy
Miserable headboard
Dwarf bamboo ant
Elf morphine
Easy-going dragonfly
Young toad
Night hemp
Bombastic mother
Roar of a tiger!
Long-legged spider?
Sound of rain and wind . . .

And last but not least . . . Little horse

Chinese is quite the language! I look forward to learning more, and here's to hoping that this "xiǎo mǎ" doesn't make a "faux pas".

Below are some links to great resources I'm using. The first is a amazon link to the text I'm starting with, which is excellent:



I've found this to be an excellent online Chinese / pinyin dictionary:

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php

And of course Google translate:

http://translate.google.com/#

And finally a link to some flashcards I'm making:

http://www.flashcardexchange.com/mycards/view/1605019

Cheers, Dr. Kowawa