Xing La Fangirl Questions

[Casey]

Originally Posted by Walden

Um....I don't know, but it's possible the name doesn't mean anything, that Hite just picked it out of thin air.

That is quite possible. Even if that's so it can still be fun to speculate. :)

Originally Posted by Walden

(Wait, Hite did all the iconic characters?)

"Xing La
Designed by Kenneth Hite
GURPS Fourth Edition Stats by Andrew Hackard and Sean Punch"
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=4796

All eight I can find (I don't have the 4e books yet but subscribe to Pyramid) are either "Designed by" or "Character Concept by" Kenneth Hite.

[shinygm]

I have to admit, I was confused by the description of "bony teeth". While the artist is quite skilled, the rendition of this character didn't really capture her rodentia tendencies well.
The art was stylized in a cinematic way that isn't conducive to portraying characters with frankly odd and off-putting characteristics without giving the "villain" vibe.

My thought was that she had long, narrow yet sharp looking teeth with odd convex structuring, rather like a rodent. Ignore the cartoons. Most rodents I've seen have incredibly sharp teeth that make a human's look blunt and frankly useless. Adapting them to a human would look rather freaky to a human not of her world. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Keep in mind I'm not an expert on the character. I do have a cousin with a pet rat, and I examined it's teeth closely out of curiosity thanks to this description.

Thanks for the Chinese language/name websites. For my Firefly campaign, I've been making due with behindthename.com (good for general use, but little detail) and resigning myself to learning basic Manderin.

[SolemnGolem]

Edit: huh, turns out I'm REALLY late to this discussion. Anyway, have a Sinophone's take on the name issue.

It's not unheard of for a Chinese name (especially for a female name) to be chosen with no particular meaning - just with a nice-sounding syllable.

Xing La is not a common combination. La is very uncommon as a name, and it's unlikely to have been chosen for its semantic meaning. If it's her family name (i.e. if the name is presented in Western notation of {given name}{surname}) then it's possible that it's a Sinicized version of a non-Chinese name.

If her family name is Xing, it is unlikely to be 姓, as that character literally means "a person's surname".

Then again, we're talking mainstream Mandarin dialect and nomenclature here. In Lenin-2, it's reasonable to assume she does not come from a Mandarin speaking locale, and that the official Mandarin {surname}{generation name}{given name} trisyllabic presentation format doesn't apply.

Her name could easily just be "Xing La", with no Chinese characters assigned, and neither of the syllables as her family name. If the nuclear family has broken down entirely, there would be no reason for a surname to exist. Many Indonesian individuals have only a single name, with no family name - or a pair of names, neither of which is common to anybody else in the family. Also, most Chinese can spell their own names in Latin characters (they learn them as part of the Pinyin romanization system, even if they don't necessarily bother to remember this into adulthood), so if civilization and literacy has taken a fall, it's perfectly feasible to imagine that Xing La never had the chance to learn the complicated Chinese characters that form her name.

Indeed, there may be no relevant Chinese characters for her name. She may just have been given a nice-sounding name by a kindly Chinese-speaking midwife.

If you go with the "kind person gave her a nice sounding name" theory, then it could just be as simple as 幸啦. This would come out as something like "lucky little La". If she ever gets off of Lenin-2's timeline, she'll probably have deserved it.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by SolemnGolem

If her family name is Xing, it is unlikely to be 姓, as that character literally means "a person's surname".

Tell that to my neighbor: Jerry Lastname.

[Bruno]

Unlikely isn't the same as impossible ;)

Especially where naming kids is concerned. THe parents in New Zealand who got away with naming their child Number 16 Bus Stop are a prime example.

[SolemnGolem]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Tell that to my neighbor: Jerry Lastname.

This reminds me of that Terry Pratchett character whose name should be pronounced "Tay-ah-tee-may" but it's spelled "Teatime".

[quarkstomper]

Then there's the story of the Swede whose last name was "Ting". When asked why a Swede would have a Chinese-sounding name, he explained:

"Hven I first come to dis country, I stand in a long line. At the end uff der line is a man at a desk. Der man ask der feller in front of me, 'Vat is your name?' und der feller in front of me says, 'Yon Yonson.' Den der man ask me, 'Vat is your name?' Und I say, 'Sam ting.' "

Yes, I grew up in Minnesota; why do you ask?

[Bruno]

I went to school with a kid with the last name of Leathers. His family is pretty clearly Eastern European, on his dads side no less, so that was a little odd.

Turns out as his ancestors came in through Ellis Island, they got stuck with a guard who's policy was, basically, "If I can't pronounce your name, you get my last name."

There's a whole bunch of "Leathers"es in North America with no relationship other than "ancestors got the same guard at Ellis Island" ;)