Chinese Tattoo Symbol for "Beautiful"

The following email was from MzToya who had forgotten the meaning of the Chinese tattoo she got on the back of her neck, a design chosen from a tattoo parlor book.

"I got this tattoo on my neck maybe eight years ago...picked it out of a book....just got the birds added. I believed it to mean beauty or beautiful....not sure.."

Hi MzToya,

Yes - the character is the formal word for "beautiful" - correctly written in Traditional Chinese. Other meanings include "handsome", "seductive", "fine", "colorful", etc. Although this is not commonly used in the day-to-day language (more literary in a sense), it is a common name for baby girls in China. So no worries if you can't find it in the dictionary, it is absolutely correct.

Thanks!

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More on the Traditional Chinese character for 妍: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%A6%8D

Respect John! Chinese, Japanese or Thai character symbol?

John sent in this picture of his tattoo with the following message:

"Hi, I was told that this tattoo means John. This was done by someone who was Chinese but I would just like my mind to be put at rest. The tattoo was done at the top of my arm. If you could help me with this I would be most grateful."

Hi John,

As far as I know, this is not the name "John." Attached is a copy of the correct version of "John." Your tattoo is a correctly written traditional Chinese character that means "to respect", "to honor", or a character that addresses the senior generation.

Hope that helps!

~

In a follow-up for further clarification, John emailed and asked:

"Ok thanks, I guess it could be a lot worse. Do you think it could be a different language? Such as Thai, Japanese or something like that. Or is it definitely Chinese?"

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Hi John,

No - this won't be any other Asian languages (Thai uses a completely different writing system - close to Arabic), except that the Japanese does borrow many Chinese characters in their written language. Most of these borrowed characters are understood by both Chinese and the Japanese, although the Japanese sometimes slightly change the meaning (e.g. the same characters saying "geisha" as understood by a Japanese person are understood as "prostitute" in Chinese). "Respect" is a widely shared virtue in both cultures - as far as any negative meanings are concerned, I would not worry about it at all.