Julien's Chinese Name

After Ju was born, I was asked often what his Chinese name meant. It was really hard to explain it, because Chinese names are nothing like English, Germanic, French or Latin names that have one standard meaning like "hope" or "strength" or whatever. Chinese names partner a surname (family name), usually in two characters unless you're of Manchu descent (ethnic Manchus originated from Manchuria who established the last dynasty of China, the Qing) and you only have one given name (for example, Chinese NBA basketballer Yao Ming).

Chinese characters, especially root words often do not have very comprehensible meanings unless they are paired with another character to form a noun, adverb or adjective. Julien's 伦 is usually paired with 理 to mean "ethics" (伦理), otherwise, explaining just 伦 alone would take all day. 

So anyway, most Singaporean Chinese have three-character names: the surname and two names. Julien's is

云惟伦

yún  wéi  lún

The etymology of the characters also tells you a wonderful story as to what the character signifies. First, I have to explain that the modern simplified script tells you very little about the meaning of the word unless you know the traditional script. Here it goes:

云 or 雲 (traditional) means "clouds".

 雲 is made up of the radicals 雨 (rain) and 云

雨 is the pictograph of raindrops falling through a cloud and 云 means vapour that rises. Today, the simplified character replaces the traditional one since vapour rising pretty much forms clouds!

惟 is made up of the radicals 忄(心)and 隹,and it means "unique" and "the only".

忄is the same as 心 which means "heart" and is an actual pictogram of a heart.  

隹(zhui) is a pictograph of a bird with a short tail.

伦 or 倫 (traditional) means ethics, order or the proper relationships between people.

倫 comprises the radicals 人 which means "person" or "man" and 侖 which means self-examination and soul-searching. So 伦(倫)-- social order (伦常)and proper relationships (伦理) are made up of people who are self-examining and do soul-searching!

Hence, Julien's name, if you want to play with the three words together, means the Cloud of the Unique and Ethical, which really doesn't make any sense at all, since unique seems to be oxymoronic to the ethics that governs proper social relationships. 

That's why it's Chinese and not English!