Please help me translate alleycat into Chinese.
I’ve got
ye maozi - “night cat” - often used in place of the word “night owl”…
Thanks Ant. I assume this is a name for someone who does things at night. Certainly a trait of an Alleycat, but is there something more in meaning to an Alleycat’s ability to be self-sufficient?
Thanks,
A
Yeh Mao <–Sorry, I don’t have chinese on this computer…
Yeh Mao ( means Wild Cat in Chinese, which I think suits you perfectly ) 
Alleycat : Cats in the alley, means that they are free from owners and are very wild in certain ways. Cats in alley usually gives us the sense of mystery, fun, crazyness and a little touch of sexyness.
Look at Garfield… hahahahahahahah
Thanks Ant. I assume this is a name for someone who does things at night. Certainly a trait of an Alleycat, but is there something more in meaning to an Alleycat’s ability to be self-sufficient?
Thanks,
A[/quote]
Yemao is sometimes used in southern China to refer to prostitutes. I don’t know if Taiwanese use it that way.
To reflect the meaning of “alley cat”, we can use "
There’s two 'ye’s here:
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]There’s two 'ye’s here:
夜猫子 通常指 经常在夜间活动的人 有时候还是 指 小偷 的意思
[quote=“Bu Lai En”](remember the case of the Taipei copper who picked up a 16 year old girl off the internet and branded these words on her arm.
[/quote]
Whatever happened to that guy?
That was one of the first news stories I heard when I arrived here, a little after the case of the dead guy in the suitcase and it was a strange introduction to Taiwan!
[quote=“Bu Lai En”](remember the case of the Taipei copper who picked up a 16 year old girl off the internet and branded these words on her arm.
[/quote]
Whatever happened to that guy?
That was one of the first news stories I heard when I arrived here, a little after the case of the dead guy in the suitcase and it was a strange introduction to Taiwan!
I think you need three sylllables just like Al-ley-cat does…
therefore try 野生貓[ye sheng mao]
ax
My suggestion is not to use the character “的” in the name…it’s just too unclassy…in my opinion.
胡同貓 (hu2 tong2 mao1)
啊貓 Pizza 店-
It is colloquial term for stray cats in Chinese. And 啊 is a nice familiar prefix. Of course some Chinese people might think there’s a store owner with a nickname “啊貓” (ah mao)
Or if you want to get fancy and only attract high society.
啊貓高級 Pizza 店 (This is an interesting contrast of meaning in Chinese)
Interesting side note:
And if you wish to expand and take on a partner you can nickname him “啊狗” (ah go)
Thus renaming the establishment.
啊貓啊狗 Pizza 店
or
啊貓啊狗高級 Pizza 店
(This is an interesting play on a common description in Chinese; could be a catchy humorous pun. No Chinese person would forget a store name like this. But it might offend some of patrons if they think they are the one being referred to as 啊貓啊狗 [riff-raff].)
啊貓皮薩
野貓皮薩
野貓 … could that mean “wildcat”? (Any University of Kentucky fans here?)
Of course, it behooves one to get some native speakers’ opinions before committing money to printing signs, menus, etc.
If you want a cute name (好可愛哦 ), then I suggest
duo3mao1mao1 躲貓貓, which means “hide and seek”. Sounds like a good name for Alleycat’s remebering that it is (or was?) quite hard to find. But people may associate very small pizza with it, I don’t know.
There used to be a place with that name in Taichung, but I don’t think it still exists.
Definitely a good idea to keep it 3 syllables, like ax said. Of the previous suggestions I like twocs’s the best:
流浪貓 liu2lang4mao1 - it means stray-which is what alleycats are called in many languages, plus liu2lang4 has the “cool” connotation of drifter, wanderer
If you want to do the literal translation, you can still keep it compact like this: xiang4zimao1
Or, an interesting phonetic translation might be: a1li3mao1 - you know, like Alishan, although this might be too Taiwanese, in th sense of too cute and non-descript.
Better yet, you can combine the 1st and 3rd suggestion, so that the name
suggests “Alleycat” in both sound and meaning:
啊流貓 a1liu2mao1