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Chinese surnames with 2 characters.

PostPosted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:38 am
by calros
Some editor changed
Seung-Goon Yuk (上官玉) alias Sheung-Kwun Yuk, Shang-Guan Yu
to
Seung Goon-Yuk, Sheung Kwun-Yuk, Shang Guan-Yu.

Well, usually Chinese names are written XXX XXX or XXX XXX-XXX.

But there are a few cases which must be written XXX-XXX XXX or XXX-XXX XXX-XXX.

The most usual cases are the following surnames:

上官 (Seung-Goon, Shang-Kuan)
歐陽 (Au-Yeung, Ou-Yang)
司徒 (Sze-To, Su-Tu)
司馬 (Sze-Ma, Shut-Ma)

These surnames must be written together or with a "-" between. I do not know why, but they are "surnames with 2 characters".

So we must write in English:

SHANG-KUAN Ling-Feng and SHANG-KUAN Yu.
OU-YANG Sha-Fei and AU-YEUNG San. But nor AU Yeung-San.
SZE-TO Cheuk-On and SZE-TO On, but not SZE To-Man.

etc.