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player nicknames in Chinese

20K views 111 replies 47 participants last post by  Aloevera 
#1 · (Edited)
I just think it's funny and want to share.
Federer is called 'niu' which means ‘cow’ in Chinese because that gift he was given . It's so well-known in China (used by fans and commentators)that when Nadal doesn't know about this people are shocked.
Nadal is ‘dou’ which means ‘bean’ because his name sounds like 'na-dou' in Chinese and also because he is cute( as a bean ).
Djokovic is ‘xiao-de'. ‘xiao’ means ‘little’ as when we call little children and ‘de’ means ‘virtue’ because that's the first word of his name when translated into Chinese.He also signed the very diffcult chinese word(‘de 德’)on camera when he came to China.
Murray is 'jiang' which means 'zombie' maybe because he looks that way sometimes on court. People say that in a lovely not offensive way.
Ferrer is 'wending' which means 'consistency'.
Feliciano Lopez is called 'meiren' which means 'beauty' .the word is normally used on a beautiful woman.

Li NA simply 'najie' which means 'Na the Sister'
and Tomic is 'to-tianwang' which means 'To(mic) the King' as in 'Fe(derer)the King' for obvious reasons and Raonic is sometimes 'ra-shen' which means ‘Ra the God’.

Janko is 'yangjing-xia'. that first word means 'glasses' while the second translates to 'master' like in 'spideman'(spider master:zhizhu-xia)‘batman’(bat master:bianfu-xia).
Gasquet is called ‘doufu’ as some of you may know it's a Chinese dish(more known as 'tofu' in North America-by LEE). It's rich in nutrition and very soft as Gas has a well-rounded game but mentally weak.
Sorry for my English.

edit:
JMDP is called many things but believe me people love him here.the first things is'da-shi-xiong'.if you watch kongfu movies you know it means 'First Big Brother' as the first one to follow a master.the name come from the classic Chinese book 'The monkey king'.with his facial hair JM looks like the monkey king(or say the actor who plays him on tv).Although it may be not flattering to be called like a monkey but as I say people don't mean insult.and ’da-shi-xiong‘ means someone you can rely on when trouble comes.in the book and tv series the most famous quote is by his useless second brother who always cries “Come help,First Big Brother! The master has be taken by the bad guys!”

Thanks vpmrosulate for reminding me!
 
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#69 ·
What is Monfils nickname? :p
 
#78 ·
If I remember correctly, some fans from the WTA forum call Marion Bartoli "175" (her IQ, supposedly :S), right?
 
#81 ·
:yeah:

This nickname for Fed originated from the cow that he was given after winning his first slam,but Chinese fans started to take this as his nickname because Federer is strong and unbeatable.

Cows and bulls can both be called as"牛"in Chinese but they have different meanings in English.
 
#82 ·
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Hooligan is a Zombie.
 
#92 ·
"ru-ya" is much better than piggy in terms of its deeper connotation.
there's also another nickname "ru-ya-na-shen" based on "ru-ya", which means "NADAL, the great humble king", which is also my favorite :devil:
 
#88 ·
oh, heres an addition for the nickname we use in China, Dimitrov ,we fans call him Dimi the dummy, not to be negative but more like a self-mockery. only used by his fans, obviously. Many murderers hate Grigor, and FYI, murderer is for Sharapova's fans cuz it is translated as Sha and its not good word in Chinese.
 
#101 · (Edited)
So I just saw this thread being shared on Weibo (basically a Chinese cross between Twitter and Tumblr), where it's been reposted over 240 times. A few people were criticizing our translations, so if anyone has a better one, feel free to tell me so I can edit my post (due credit given of course). I have experience in literary translation but I agree some of these were pretty hasty.

Still, English is my main language, guys.... :shrug:

EDIT: also 190 replies here
 
#107 ·
Bumped for this is the GOAT thread

should be sticky

pretty insightful information plus a lesson in a foreign culture
 
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