That's a good idea ;-P I've been working on it but it's only for our internal use at this time. Chinese names are also required in some counties in California. I shared the following in our blog: The California State Legislature passed a bill this year (and it was approved by the Governor on July 12) that requires phonetic transliterations of candidates’ alphabet-based names to appear on ballots and ballot materials in jurisdiction required to translate ballot materials into character-based languages. https://service.goodcharacters.com/daily/20190701-ab-57-cand...
> requires phonetic transliterations of candidates’ alphabet-based names to appear on ballots and ballot materials in jurisdiction required to translate ballot materials into character-based languages
In my experience, Chinese versions of foreign words, including foreign names, usually don't approach the sound of the original as closely as Chinese phonology allows. That is, they aren't really meant as "phonetic transliterations"; there are other options available purely within Chinese that would approximate the original sound more closely.[1]
Instead, the goal seems to be that you're in the right ballpark on the sound, and then you tweak the name for other factors such as character semantics while staying somewhere in the ballpark.
And of course, once a name is conventionalized, you'd want to use that rather than innovating a new version.
[1] Of course it's possible in general that while my foreign ears think a different Chinese syllable would better match the foreign one, the Chinese disagree and really believe they are using the closest available match. There are plenty of ready examples, such as Coca-Cola, where this is obviously not the case.
I recommend authors and public figures to decide on their own official Chinese names. Unless a well-known person declares his or her Chinese name, Chinese reporters have to make one up or see how others transliterate it. The Chinese language is full of homophones; thus, there are literally thousands of ways an alphabetical name can be converted into Chinese. Unlike most other languages, Chinese has no standard way to translate names.
There is no one central authority in regard to Chinese names. Reporters in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan — each of these regions is its own trademark jurisdiction — often have their own ideas. This results in multiple Chinese names for the same person, each with its own meanings and connotations that often are not the best.
> I wonder whether some older western imports got their names in Cantonese, is this a thing?
Yes, it is the norm for older loanwords. Compare Mandarin jia-na-da [Canada] from Cantonese ga-la-da, or Mandarin mo-xi-ge [Mexico] from Cantonese mak-sai-go.
EDIT: it's worth observing that the Chinese themselves are generally not aware that the older loanwords came through Cantonese.
This also applies in the opposite direction for English loanwords of Chinese origin, which are often Cantonese. E.g. bok choy is from 白菜 (white vegetable), which is pronounced baak6 coi3 in Cantonese (Jyutping romanization) but báicài in Mandarin (Pinyin romanization). Note that Mandarin has lost the final -k of the first syllable, which is retained in the loan.
I wouldn't affirm Canada transliteration come from Cantonese without serious proof. Not too long ago (about a century [1]), the initial now romanized by <j> was written with <k>. I'm not specialist of the phonetic changes that happen during that time in the involved languages and dialects, but it is totally credible that 加拿大 comes from Mandarin. The initial involved in 加 seems to have change "recently". This also explain the Peking/Beijing thing.
The Peking / Beijing thing is indeed the same thing you see in Canada / jianada. Peking / Nanking / etc. do not come from Mandarin.
Read your own link:
> The transcription of the EFEO did not borrow its phonetics from the national official Standard Mandarin. Rather, it was synthesized independently to be a mean of Chinese dialects, and shows a state of sounds a little older in form
Reading is good, understanding the implications is better. Standard Mandarin is newer than the period at which Canada would appear as a loanword in Chinese, so of course it is not drawn from that language. But that doesn't mean it is Cantonese either. Moreover, I wrote Mandarin (a Chinese languages with a variety of dialects), not Standard Mandarin (the language taught at school).
I based the Canada on oral communication and the Mexico on textual communication. I've never studied Cantonese.
It feels safe to say the second syllable beginning with N in Mandarin was just good luck though. I might have swapped out the N for L anyway if I had known the Jyutping.
An example of a distinction that would have come through fine English -> Mandarin being lost by apparent transmission through Cantonese exists in Los Angeles, 洛杉矶. The Mandarin is luo-shan-ji, which annoys me every time I need to understand or produce the name. Mandarin has no problem distinguishing s from sh.
Mandarin and Cantonese, two of several Chinese dialects, share the same Chinese writing system based on Chinese characters. But the same character is pronounced differently depending on the dialect. So a name can be transliterated in "Cantonese way" or "Mandarin way," yes.
