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The Tech Dynasty
Navigating the bamboo scaffolding of China's rapid-rising tower of technology
Apr 21, 2009 20:38
Understanding Chinese Web site names
Posted by RyanM
Since coming to China nearly half a decade ago, and even more so since taking the reins here at The Tech Dynasty, I've become increasingly surrounded by the facinating world of Chinese Web sites. While the West has an ever-convoluted domain pool to deal with, the Chinese are not to be outdone. What follows is my modest attempt to explain the meaning behind some of China's largest Web sites and their sometimes obscure domain names.
QQ.com: "The original name of QQ was OICQ. The name was based on an already existing IMS (Internet Message Service), ICQ. ICQ was one of the first IMS programs. The acronym ICQ came from the fact that the letters sound like 'I seek you'. OICQ stood for 'Oriental ICQ' [sic], but because of possible trademark infringement was changed to QQ." (source). Update: DoubleLeaf points out in the comments that the "O" wasn't for "Oriental" but for "Open", which the Chinese Wikipedia page backs up.
Sina.com: One of the more obvious of the bunch, Sina is a distortion of "Sino", a common prefix meaning "China" which is a carryover with Greek/Latin roots.
Sohu.com (搜狐/sōuh): Much like Yahoo, which it wouldn't be a guess was its muse, Sohu.com is a search engine and Internet portal which literally translates to "search fox". It's short, it's visual, and it aurally mimics the sound of the largest site in the world at the time, Yahoo.
163.com: The site largely takes its branding from its parent company, Netease (网易/wǎngy, lit. "net" and "easy"). However, in times past people used something called "the dial-up" (presumably made of stone, or bronze) to connect to the Internet, and 163 was the dialing prefix used to connect to ChinaNet (China's national ISP). (h/t Adam Schokora for pointing me to this answer).
126.com: A popular Chinese email service, 126.com also dips into nostalgia for its name--taking it from the now defunct paging industry. Back before everyone and his or her nainai (grandma) had a mobile, the hippest of Chinese would dial "126" to connect to China's largest paging service. The site is also owned by Netease which seems to love 3-number sites. According to this post the name may also originate from the fact that 126 in Chinese is 幺二六/yāo rli, which sounds like "let you be happy", "want you to be happy".
Sogou.com (搜狗/Sōugǒu): Translates literally to "search dog"--the slightly more domesticated brother of Sohu.com ("search fox"), which owns and operates Sogou.com.
Youdao.com (有道/YǒuDo): Roughly translates as "there's a way".
Google.cn (谷歌/Gǔgē): Literally translates as "valley song", but is simply a slightly Sound of Music-esque transliteration of "Google".
Youku.com (优酷/yōuk): Lit. means "excellent" and "cool". The "酷/k" may also be a bit of an homage to Youku creator Victor Koo. Though the site's Romanized similarity to "YouTube" is hard to miss, in Chinese "you" is pronounced more like the English "yo" (think Sly Stallone).
56.com (五六/wŭli): Sometimes you really have to squint your ears to figure out the meaning behind what otherwise seems like random numbers in domain names. Such is the case with 56.com which had me stumped until George Godula from Web2Asia explained that it sounds like 我乐/wǒl--Chinese for "I happy". Update: A few people have suggested that the actual meaning behind 56.com is无聊/wlio, or "bored", and it was George who again cleared things up--pointing us all to the site's logo (here), which clearly says "我乐/wǒl".
Xiaonei.com (校内/xioni): Literally means "in school" or "on campus", which fits the site's heavy uni-student user base.
Kaixin001.com (开心/kāixīn): Literally means "to feel happy" or simply "happy". I assume the "001" was simply added because at the time Kaixin.com wasn't available. Kaixin.com (also meaning "happy") was later purchased by the parent company of Kaixin001.com's competitor, Xiaonei.com (see The Happy Wars--a battle for white-collar SNS in China).
51.com (五幺/wŭyāo): According to Andy Yao, 51.com's VP of Marketing, the name was chosen because it is short/easy to remember and sounds similar to "我要/wǒ yo"--Chinese for "I want".
Dianping.com (大众点评网/dzhng diǎnpng wǎng): Literally translates to "People Review Net", which is exactly what Dianping is--user-generated restaurant and city life reviews.junk treasures they want free of charge.
Joyo (卓越/zhuyu): Though now branded with Amazon's logo and domain, the site's original Chinese moniker (which still graces the header) couldn't be any more direct--its literal translation is "excellence" or "brilliant".
Dangdang.com (当当/dāngdāng): "Dangdang comes from the Chinese adjective 'xiangdangdang' (the clanging sound for fame). We wanted a name that would be easy for Chinese living [in China] and overseas to pronounce."--Peggy Yu." (source)
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I've tried to include the largest sites in China. For any that I've missed, please leave a comment below.
The portals
Tencent.com: "The name "Tencent" is derived from the Chinese phrase "十分" (pinyin: sh fēn), while literally meaning "ten cents" (where one 分 fēn is a one-hundredth subdivision of one yuan), is also used as a phrase for "very", for example, "十分强大" (sh fēn qing d) would translate to "very mighty". (source)QQ.com: "The original name of QQ was OICQ. The name was based on an already existing IMS (Internet Message Service), ICQ. ICQ was one of the first IMS programs. The acronym ICQ came from the fact that the letters sound like 'I seek you'. OICQ stood for 'Oriental ICQ' [sic], but because of possible trademark infringement was changed to QQ." (source). Update: DoubleLeaf points out in the comments that the "O" wasn't for "Oriental" but for "Open", which the Chinese Wikipedia page backs up.
Sina.com: One of the more obvious of the bunch, Sina is a distortion of "Sino", a common prefix meaning "China" which is a carryover with Greek/Latin roots.
Sohu.com (搜狐/sōuh): Much like Yahoo, which it wouldn't be a guess was its muse, Sohu.com is a search engine and Internet portal which literally translates to "search fox". It's short, it's visual, and it aurally mimics the sound of the largest site in the world at the time, Yahoo.
163.com: The site largely takes its branding from its parent company, Netease (网易/wǎngy, lit. "net" and "easy"). However, in times past people used something called "the dial-up" (presumably made of stone, or bronze) to connect to the Internet, and 163 was the dialing prefix used to connect to ChinaNet (China's national ISP). (h/t Adam Schokora for pointing me to this answer).
126.com: A popular Chinese email service, 126.com also dips into nostalgia for its name--taking it from the now defunct paging industry. Back before everyone and his or her nainai (grandma) had a mobile, the hippest of Chinese would dial "126" to connect to China's largest paging service. The site is also owned by Netease which seems to love 3-number sites. According to this post the name may also originate from the fact that 126 in Chinese is 幺二六/yāo rli, which sounds like "let you be happy", "want you to be happy".
Search engines
Baidu.com (百度/Bǎid): "Many people have asked about the meaning of our name. 'Baidu' was inspired by a poem written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compared the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamor with the search for one's dream while confronted by life's many obstacles. '...hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood.' Baidu, whose literal meaning is hundreds of times, represents persistent search for the ideal." (source)Sogou.com (搜狗/Sōugǒu): Translates literally to "search dog"--the slightly more domesticated brother of Sohu.com ("search fox"), which owns and operates Sogou.com.
Youdao.com (有道/YǒuDo): Roughly translates as "there's a way".
Google.cn (谷歌/Gǔgē): Literally translates as "valley song", but is simply a slightly Sound of Music-esque transliteration of "Google".
Video sharing
Tudou.com (土豆网/Tǔdu Wǎng): "According to CEO [Gary] Wang, the name comes from the English idiom "couch potato". He stated that his goal was to move couch potatoes from the television screen to the computer screen. (source)Youku.com (优酷/yōuk): Lit. means "excellent" and "cool". The "酷/k" may also be a bit of an homage to Youku creator Victor Koo. Though the site's Romanized similarity to "YouTube" is hard to miss, in Chinese "you" is pronounced more like the English "yo" (think Sly Stallone).
56.com (五六/wŭli): Sometimes you really have to squint your ears to figure out the meaning behind what otherwise seems like random numbers in domain names. Such is the case with 56.com which had me stumped until George Godula from Web2Asia explained that it sounds like 我乐/wǒl--Chinese for "I happy". Update: A few people have suggested that the actual meaning behind 56.com is无聊/wlio, or "bored", and it was George who again cleared things up--pointing us all to the site's logo (here), which clearly says "我乐/wǒl".
BBS/Forums/SNS
Tieba.Baidu.com (百度贴吧/bǎid tiēbā): Baidu's "Post Bar" uses the "pub" or "saloon" imagery for one of China's largest user-generated gathering points where visitors can get virtually any topic on tap.Xiaonei.com (校内/xioni): Literally means "in school" or "on campus", which fits the site's heavy uni-student user base.
Kaixin001.com (开心/kāixīn): Literally means "to feel happy" or simply "happy". I assume the "001" was simply added because at the time Kaixin.com wasn't available. Kaixin.com (also meaning "happy") was later purchased by the parent company of Kaixin001.com's competitor, Xiaonei.com (see The Happy Wars--a battle for white-collar SNS in China).
51.com (五幺/wŭyāo): According to Andy Yao, 51.com's VP of Marketing, the name was chosen because it is short/easy to remember and sounds similar to "我要/wǒ yo"--Chinese for "I want".
Dianping.com (大众点评网/dzhng diǎnpng wǎng): Literally translates to "People Review Net", which is exactly what Dianping is--user-generated restaurant and city life reviews.
Online shopping
Taobao.com (淘宝/tobǎo): The two characters literally translate as "to clean out" and "treasure", which is a rather euphemistic description of this eBay-like site where anyone can sell all theJoyo (卓越/zhuyu): Though now branded with Amazon's logo and domain, the site's original Chinese moniker (which still graces the header) couldn't be any more direct--its literal translation is "excellence" or "brilliant".
Dangdang.com (当当/dāngdāng): "Dangdang comes from the Chinese adjective 'xiangdangdang' (the clanging sound for fame). We wanted a name that would be easy for Chinese living [in China] and overseas to pronounce."--Peggy Yu." (source)
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I've tried to include the largest sites in China. For any that I've missed, please leave a comment below.
- Talkback
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doubleaf says...
OICQ stood for Open ICQ, not Oriental ICQ
Apr 21, 2009 21:23
OICQ stood for Open ICQ, not Oriental ICQ
Apr 21, 2009 21:23
RyanM says...
Cool, thanks doubleaf - I thought that "Oriental" bit sounded sort of strange, but then we're dealing with something called a "QQ", so all bets are off. As you can see, that's taken straight from the Wikipedia page. Do you have an alternate source for its origin?
Apr 22, 2009 06:58
Cool, thanks doubleaf - I thought that "Oriental" bit sounded sort of strange, but then we're dealing with something called a "QQ", so all bets are off. As you can see, that's taken straight from the Wikipedia page. Do you have an alternate source for its origin?
Apr 22, 2009 06:58
doubleaf says...
I started to use QQ when it was still called Open ICQ in 2000. At that time, QQ was just a nick name for OICQ used by its users. The Chinese edition of Wikipedia also stated it clearly ï¼
1999å¹´2æ11æ¥ï¼è ¾è®¯å ¬å¸æ£å¼æ¨åºç¬¬ä¸ä¸ªå³æ¶é信软件---OPEN-ICQï¼ç¼©å为OICQã
On Feb 11,1999,Tencent launched its first IMS- OPEN-ICQ,abbreviated as OICQ.
zh.wikipedia.org...
Apr 22, 2009 08:24
I started to use QQ when it was still called Open ICQ in 2000. At that time, QQ was just a nick name for OICQ used by its users. The Chinese edition of Wikipedia also stated it clearly ï¼
1999å¹´2æ11æ¥ï¼è ¾è®¯å ¬å¸æ£å¼æ¨åºç¬¬ä¸ä¸ªå³æ¶é信软件---OPEN-ICQï¼ç¼©å为OICQã
On Feb 11,1999,Tencent launched its first IMS- OPEN-ICQ,abbreviated as OICQ.
zh.wikipedia.org...
Apr 22, 2009 08:24
spangaroo says...
Great list and thank you for adding the pinyin to help with the pronunciation.
Apr 22, 2009 11:00
Great list and thank you for adding the pinyin to help with the pronunciation.
Apr 22, 2009 11:00
DigitalEastAsia says...
Thanks. Very interesting.
Your post coincides with our post on Digital East Asia in which we discuss the challenge to Western companies in using non-native language URLs in China.
We've included a link to your post in ours here: www.digitaleastasia.com...
Apr 23, 2009 04:03
Thanks. Very interesting.
Your post coincides with our post on Digital East Asia in which we discuss the challenge to Western companies in using non-native language URLs in China.
We've included a link to your post in ours here: www.digitaleastasia.com...
Apr 23, 2009 04:03
scoobydoo says...
What we need is a complete list of the most popular websites in China, and what each of these websites do besides their names and meanings. This is a good start, however. Thanks!
Apr 23, 2009 09:22
What we need is a complete list of the most popular websites in China, and what each of these websites do besides their names and meanings. This is a good start, however. Thanks!
Apr 23, 2009 09:22
johnchan says...
This is a nice read, Ryan. I was in Beijing recently and noticed that many Western brand names, though transliterated, always alluded to some meaning of luck or happiness. The effort just doesn't seem as pronounced here in Singapore as many of the transliterations are simply direct ones that sound like the English equivalent.
Apr 23, 2009 11:20
This is a nice read, Ryan. I was in Beijing recently and noticed that many Western brand names, though transliterated, always alluded to some meaning of luck or happiness. The effort just doesn't seem as pronounced here in Singapore as many of the transliterations are simply direct ones that sound like the English equivalent.
Apr 23, 2009 11:20
RyanM says...
Thanks for the feedback guys. And big props to DoubleLeaf for catching that Wikipedia error (stating the "O" in OICQ was for Oriental, not "Open" as it should).
I've corrected that in the post, as well as cleared up a bit of controversy about 56.com's name.
@scoobydoo: It's in the works. Thanks for the suggestion.
@johnchan: You're right about a lot of transliterations going for the luck/happiness connotations. I wonder if there's some ministry some where that pressures these sorts of decisions. Some marketing firm comes up with some brilliant transliteration that firmly encompasses the brand's mission statement and then the ministry takes a look and says "Hmmm... it just doesn't sound lucky enough. Maybe a bit more happiness?" ;-)
Apr 24, 2009 07:14
Thanks for the feedback guys. And big props to DoubleLeaf for catching that Wikipedia error (stating the "O" in OICQ was for Oriental, not "Open" as it should).
I've corrected that in the post, as well as cleared up a bit of controversy about 56.com's name.
@scoobydoo: It's in the works. Thanks for the suggestion.
@johnchan: You're right about a lot of transliterations going for the luck/happiness connotations. I wonder if there's some ministry some where that pressures these sorts of decisions. Some marketing firm comes up with some brilliant transliteration that firmly encompasses the brand's mission statement and then the ministry takes a look and says "Hmmm... it just doesn't sound lucky enough. Maybe a bit more happiness?" ;-)
Apr 24, 2009 07:14
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