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Pregnancy Series 7: Choosing a Name for the Baby

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IN THIS LESSON
ID: 1186 Upper Intermediate
Many Chinese believe that a baby's name affects its destiny. Today's Mandarin podcast will teach you how to agonize over the subtleties and hidden traps of choosing an appropriate Chinese name for your little bundle of joy.
Fri Jun 19 2009 | Jenny , John
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SIMPLIFIED PINYIN ENGLISH  
生辰八字 shēngchénbāzì the birth-date characters used in fortune telling
迷信 míxìn superstition
算命 suànmìng fortune-telling
俗 sú vulgar, common
老公，孩子的名字我们自己起吧。不要让你妈算什么生辰八字，又迷信又难听。
lǎogōng ，háizi de míngzi wǒmén zìjǐ qǐ ba 。bù yào ràng nǐ mā calculate shénme shēngchénbāzì ，yòu míxìn yòu nántīng 。
Darling, let's think of a name for the baby by ourselves. Let's not have your mom look at the eight characters that express the baby's birth. It's superstitious, and the names sound bad.
你别激动，小心吓坏了宝宝。
nǐ bié jīdòng ，xiǎoxīn xià huài le bǎobao 。
Don't get excited-- don't scare little precious.
她今天拿了一张纸给我，都是找人算命起的名字。你自己看，什么李金鹏，李金涛，俗不俗啊？现在哪有小孩叫这种名字？说出去还不被人笑死。
tā jīntiān ná le yī zhāng zhǐ gěi wǒ ，dōu shì zhǎo rén suànmìng qǐ de míngzi 。nǐzìjǐ kàn ，shénme Lǐ Jīnpéng ，Lǐ Jīntāo ，sú bù sú ā ？xiànzài nǎyǒu xiǎohái jiào zhèzhǒng míngzi ？shuō chūqù hái bù bèi rén xiào sǐ 。
She gave me a piece of paper today. It had a bunch of names that she got from fortune-tellers. Look for yourself-- there's stuff like ''Li Jinpeng," ''Li Jintao"-- are those common or what? What kind of kids have names like that these days? You couldn't say them without people laughing.
妈也是一片好心嘛。我回头跟她说说，名字还是由我们来决定。对了，你那时候不是说叫孩子“李于” 吗？我觉得挺好，我们俩的姓放在一起。而且男女都能用。
mā yě shì yīpiànhǎoxīn ma 。wǒ huítóu gēn tā shuō shuo ，míngzi hái shì yóu wǒmen lái juédìng 。duìle ，nǐ nà shíhou bù shì shuō jiào háizi “lǐyú ” ma ？wǒ juéde tǐng hǎo ，wǒmen liǎ de xìng fàng zài yīqǐ 。érqiě nánnǚ dōu néng yòng 。
She has good intentions. I'll talk it over with her in a bit-- the name should be chosen by us. Oh, right-- didn't you say one time that you wanted to call the baby ''Li Yu?" I think that's a great name. It combines both of our surnames. And it would fit a boy or a girl.
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