梅瑰

So some of you may know my Chinese name is 梅瑰, pronounced mei(rising tone)gui(flat tone). If comes from a combined effort involving my dad and high school Chinese teacher. When my family lived in Singapore my dad decided to give us all Chinese names and mine was huang meigui meaning yellow rose. The name was fitting because I'm a Texas girl through and through (hence the yellow rose of Texas), and my middle name on my birth certificate is Rose. I've always loved my middle name and how it mirrors my Chinese name and Spanish name, Rosa. I guess I just find the continuity very poetic. Well when I started taking Chinese classes in high school I wanted to keep the name huang meigui, but my teacher said it was not fitting for a name because it was just an adjective stuck onto a common noun. Well she worked with the characters and my request to change the name as little as possible, and she came up with my current Chinese name which uses traditional Chinese name characters but fits them together in a way that you pronounce my name like the Chinese word for rose even though it is "spelled" differently. So looking at my name on paper no one would read it as "rose" in their head, but when read aloud you hear the true meaning blossom. I absolutely love it, and to my amazement every single one of my professors here in China has said that my name is very 好听, or very nice sounding. I must admit, I'm proud of both my name and its origin.