I like the way this sounds. It has the “Z” sound and I think it goes well with family name. Do you know what it means?
子 means child, more specifically son, but it’s used in boy and girl names quite often. 秀 means elegant and graceful and intelligent and all kinds of positive things.
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I was under the impression that names starting with 子 were more ‘male’? Please correct me if I’m wrong, this is mainly because I have met many male Taiwanese named X子X but no female Taiwanese named thusly.
You could also go with a two-character name, like 康颯 sounds fine to me and 颯 means ‘elegant’ in a womanly fashion according to pleco.
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I think 子 is suitable to either sex. I have met more men with 子 in their names but know a number of women with 子 in their names, as well.
秀 is quite a feminine character.
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Thank you, that is definitely one of the finalists. I don’t care for stroke count either. As long as the meaning isn’t something bad, I also prefer something that’s simple to write, and easy to pronounce. This one definitely checks those boxes. Will share it with the wife later.
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Me and both of my kids have two-character names. Always easy to find in a list and names are easier to write.
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Thanks, it’s 1081031.
31st Oct 2019.
By the way, Thank you all for the help. It’s funny that I am getting help for Chinese name from foreigners mostly. I have been trying since Nov last year. Every local colleague/friend I asked, said they’d get back to me, but didn’t. So, I ended up making her ARC without a Chinese name.
Sorry I was being facetious. In the spirit of assisting you with my very limited skills in this area, here are my thoughts.
I think the suggestion to see some stroke expert is a good one. Partly because I think there are clear no-go words that you will easily avoid, but then there are some more subtle “slighly negative” characters that you would not want to choose. As a foreigner easy to fall into this trap. Also there are some characters that you may be continually explaining how to write verbally, as the sound has a few different written characters, all of which are common names, so it will depend if you want her/yourself/your wife to avoid this tedium too.
Also I think if she is born and raised in Taiwan she is Taiwan ren.
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Thank you, appreciate your advice. Especially about ‘different version’ characters. I’ll see if I can find a fortune teller / stroke expert in Kaohsiung. I haven’t done this until now because I didn’t think I would find one that could communicate in English.
Here is a list of local baby naming web sites that may be of help
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it took me a whole month of obsessing with astrology, Chinese astrology, and numerology with both Chinese and English names for my son. here’s what I used:
overall strokes including family name:
https://kknews.cc/zh-tw/astrology/nxlpz48.html
input names you’d like into this engine to calculate overall:
and don’t forget to cross ref word meanings:
https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/zodiac-calendar
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Your daughter is absolutely adorable.
I agree with this. When I changed my Chinese name before I got married (long story), I consulted a Name Master – he considered my birthdate and came up with a list of names - less than 10, iirc. I chose the one that happened to have a 子, btw
When my son was born, my wife and her sister took charge. The Name Master who they consulted returned with an entire sheet of paper full of names and lines and shapes. It looked like a map. There must have been dozens of names there. I have no idea where they all came from. My wife and her sister narrowed the choices to 4 or 5 before I was allowed to have any input. I didn’t mind, because they were not involved in the Non-Chinese naming of my son (and I gave him enough of a name that he has to have his full name printed in the last page of his passport)
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Same here, got my name from fortune teller, seem to have a positive effect on locals when they see the name.
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you might ask to your colleague go with you as a translator. They may feel less responsible than giving a name.
莎拉（Sa- La-)
Translated from Sarah. This 2 characters are often seen in Chinese name
康珊娜 （San- Na`)
珊- a precious thing
娜- graceful, elegant
康潔比 (Jie’)
潔 clean
比 doesn’t really mean anything in Chinese name. But I think it sounds well.
康宜安 or 康怡安 (Yi’ An-) local sounding name
宜 suitable or appropriate
怡 happy, joyful, harmony
安 calm, peace
康洢艾 (Yi- Ai`)
洢 name of water
艾 a fine lady
You might also want to think about how difficult it is to write the name. Because it decides how often your daughter is going to use it and like the name.
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Does this mean you never ordered a salad during the many years that preceded your naturalization? 
My $0.02 on this is there is absolutely no need for the English name and Chinese name to be related to each other in any way (unless, of course, you want them to be).
After all, there are legions of Rainies Hsiehs and Candy Chens out there and you can bet your bottom dollar their Chinese names aren’t 謝雨天 and 陳糖果.
We just had a daughter and we named her Mia in English and 沐安 (mu-an) in Chinese. I like that they both start with “M” but other than that they have no connection.
I’ll admit it was tough finding her a good Chinese name even with my wife’s family all being Taiwanese. The trouble is, they are Taiwanese Christians. The first few names suggested by them were things like 多加 which just made no sense to me, since Taiwanese people’s names usually have some literary meaning or fancy characters.
Turns out, my MIL was just suggesting transliterations of obscure Bible names. My head nearly exploded.
So then we turned to a Chinese-American friend who was born in China and is a Chinese language professor. He gave us some suggestions and we really liked one of them, 夢蘭, our daughter was born in Yilan where my wife’s family has lived for hundreds of years, so “Dreaming of Yilan” seamed really nice to me, but, it got vetoed by aforementioned MIL because [direct quote] she thought it “sounded like a bar girl name.” Actually kind of a fair point with the 夢 but I thought she was being a little over-sensitive. Nevertheless I’m not Taiwanese so we dropped that one.
Finally we got to 沐安 which I think is beautiful and I’m very happy with it. “Receiving Peace.” If we have a son I plan to name him 安森 so they can share the character 安.
No real advice for you, but good luck! It is important. I regret my own Chinese name (it’s boring), but can’t be fucked to change it now.
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Thank you 
This must be one of benefits to having a Taiwanese wife. She and the in-laws will surely help with Taiwanese names. My wife and I are both clueless in this case, but judging from everyone’s comments here, we are strongly considering to find a name expert now. We will just have to find someone to accompany us there. Maybe I’ll have to bribe a colleague with tea or dinner. Let’s see
I have followed some of the links given here, which were very useful. I came up with some names but need to run them by someone.
康善雅 (Kāng shàn yǎ) Good / Elegant
康索拉 (Kāng suǒ lā) Search / Pull
康善茹 (Kāng shàn rú) Good / Endure
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康善茹 (Kāng shàn rú) Good / Endure
This is very good, but I’d suggest 「如 」instead of 「茹」, as the literal meaning of 「善茹」 is “good at eating”. 「如」in Buddhism means tathatā. I’d translate「善如」as “the essence of goodness”.
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