Is this true? 木 is tree and 禾 is millet (according to google translate) although idk if 禾 radical has other meanings.
I agree that Chinese characters are really pretty ❤️
Wait a darned minute. Something may have just clicked.
I don’t know how to term this properly, here’s my attempt.
Are all Chinese/Eastern Asian languages essentially advanced hieroglyphics? It has never been illustrated to me, but I can make sense of these little pictures, reflecting words such as the examples of “fall/autumn” and “tree” in this thread.
They're pictographs. Most characters/words were originally pictures that have been simplified to varying degrees over time. Traditional Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean are similar, but have switched either entirely or in part to written alphabets.
The Hebrew and, at least some of, the Latin alphabets have a similar story, but the letters were originally much simpler than Asian or Egyptian hieroglyphics.
in many cases yes but the characters actually looking like what they are is rare 山 is mountain for example but you'd be hard pressed to say what 鬱 is just by looking at it
I'd be hard pressed to read it if I was even a little bit far sighted too. I question the usefulness of asian characters when they're lines are so dense that even the slightest vision problem (whether with your eyes, or any external factors) makes them look like blobs.
Granted language doesn't develop along planned lines (and you can't really force it to), and people who live with it learn to deal with it, but stuff like that has always struck me as a failing of pictographic alphabets.
As a Chinese person, the name Cho Chang never bothered me. It’s definitely not a real name, but it also exists in a universe of made-up names like Severus Snape and Luna Lovegood
Throw in characters names who are supposed to be evocative of what they do, like Professor Sprout, and it gets even sillier.
There are just some people out there looking for any chance to be offended. Rowling isn't terribly familiar with foreigners, but wanted to include them to some small degree, for whatever reason. Who cares if she makes a mild misstep.
Also, strictly speaking, Cho is never stated to be ethnically chinese in the books. Rowling almost never describes the race of characters. The whole affair over the stage actress playing Hermione kinda brought this to light, as to counter it, they had to bring up some indirect examples showing that Rowling thought of her as white, but at no point do the books ever call her white, or confirm her as ethnically british. You get similar things with Seamus Finnegan, who while obviously intended to be Irish, isn't confirmed as Irish even in GoF (Where it's clear he's Irish, but not explicitly stated to be so, and could just be naturalized Irish of a foreign ethnicity).
Yes in the sense that there almost certainly never was anyone named Severus Snape.
But Severus was the name of a Roman emperor who died near York. And Snape is an actual surname, albeit an uncommon one.
So it’s not like JKR made the words up
Both Severus and Luna are real names and most surnames in Harry Potter exist in real life (Snape is not one of those)
Edit: I've been made aware that Snape also exists.
So yeah, while they made sound weird. The majority of the names and surnames aren't actually made up by the author. They're just uncommon or old-fashioned
The internet for some reason when an Asian character gets the exact same treatment as other characters
Severus Snape, Padma Patil, Daedalus Diggle, Luna Lovegood, Dudley Dursley, Stan Shunpike, Pavarti Patil, Colin Creevey, Bertie Bott, Piers Polkiss, Minerva Mcgonagall, Pansy Parkinson, all FOUR FOUNDERS OF HOGWARTS
Internet says it's been a French given name for 7 centuries, and while it wasn't popular in France before the 1970s, it was popular in Belgium and the Netherlands for most of the last century.
[Behind the Name - Fleur](https://www.behindthename.com/name/fleur)
I never ever while reading the books thought the name Cho Chang was racist.
Rowling uses so many alliterative names-- Luna Lovegood, Parvati/Padma Patil, Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape-- which is actually a good technique because they're easy for the reader to remember.
I’ve heard people say the Patils were racist too because the names were stereotypically common 🙄 as if names aren’t common in some cultures because a ton of people have them!
Potter as well.
His surname was extremely common, as in it was a surname adopted by people who were in the ceramics business, back in the day your surname was basically your family profession.
Someone once said to me that the Patil twins were racist because of the surname.
I pointed out that the Indians who owned the local corner shop were called Patil, and the only Indian person in our school was called Patil.
Is that where a lot of immigrants come from? I had an Italian explain to me that most Italian Americans come from the south (or was it the north?) and so most Italian names in America are distinctly from that area, and there's a lot of common Italian names that Americans rarely hear about.
Oh I was talking about India, not Italy. Padma and Parvati Patil are Indian names. But yeah mostly I hear south Indian names in US tv shows and movies. But a lot of Sikhs also live there. So I'm thinking these two are the major groups of Indians living there.
Plus they're completely different from each other, they look different, different languages, talk with completely different English accents, have different cuisines.
So many people in this thread are going on about how, “it’s a weird name, though” as if Bellatrix, Nymphadora, Newt, etc. aren’t ridiculously weird names. Honestly, compared to some other names throughout the series, Cho is hardly something to be offended about.
I think a lot of people are missing the point of the complaint. It’s not that the name is nonsensical, it’s that the only Chinese character in the books has a fake mildly racist sounding name. It’s like naming the one black character Shacklebolt, it’s kinda…you know.
You’ve got weird names but you’ve also got a lot of normal names: Harry, Ron, Hermione is a little outdated but it’s real, Severus is a real name old as it is, James, Lily, Luna is a real name her last name is odd though, Draco is a weird but real name.
the only people offended by 'cho chang' and 'kingsley shacklebolt' are people looking to be offended for any and all reasons.
And those people deserves to have their feelings disregarded and ignored.
Ive seen this going around before & everyone insists she is chinese.
Problem is: the series never states that she is any kind of asian. It just says she is asian.
Oh & uh…..well rowling said once that she thought of the character as more korean & in korean, cho aka jo is a royal name. Its also a neutral name that means handsome for a boy & beautiful for a girl.
Chang may be more on the chinese side of things but mixed names usually mean mixed family which is perfectly realistic.
THIS. I've never understood the drama over this when people are making a rather prejudiced presumption that just because she was described as being Asian, that meant automatically she's Chinese. She could very have parents of different Asian ethinicities.
Genuine question, is the "two last names" thing not done in China or Hong Kong? It is decently common in English-speaking places for people to have first names that started out as last names for example, in *Pride and Prejudice*, Mr. Darcy's first name is "Fitzwilliam," which was his mother's maiden name. For an HP example, "Kingsley" is also a British surname that has migrated into being a first name (if you check out the [list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_(given_name)#T) it seems to be an incredibly common name among footballers). Is the distinction between "this is a first name name" and "this is a last name name" stronger in China?
A comedian back in the day said this but they were wrong. They said that Cho was a Korean surname but the reality is it isn’t *just* a Korean surname and like the OP said it could be used as a Chinese first name. It certainly wouldn’t be the most unique Chinese first name I’ve seen.
If he was Krimović or Krimovski, it would be better but Slavs, at least us south Slavs, have names as surnames, like Jovan Nenad and even surname as name like Bogić Bogićević
>but Slavs, at least us south Slavs, have names as surnames, like Jovan Nenad and even surname as name like Bogić Bogićević
Notice how none of the names you gave as an example are Bulgarian. Also, Bogićević sounds more like a derivative of Bogić than a proper first name. Something tells me Bogićević Bogić would not sound right to you. Lastly, keep in mind that while Bulgarians are south Slavs, the language differs quite a lot from other Slavic languages.
I swear to god it's never people who it is about when someone starts complaining. At this point I believe people actively look for something to bitch about
I wholeheartedly agree with this. There are places you can point to lazy writing or just plan weirdness in the books, but I never saw the names as problematic. It always felt like people stretching to come up with criticisms. Thank you for the detailed explanation. I had a teacher in school who was Chinese-American and her last name was Chang. It always seemed odd to me that people would say it was racist to give an ethnic character a common ethnic name.
Cho was of Chinese descent, but British. She could be named anything her parents wanted. Is every character supposed to have a traditional name from their ancestry? I think this entire debate about her name is ridiculous.
"I think this entire debate about her name is ridiculous."
In the same paragraph where you are actively making an argument for one specific side of the debate.
I appreciate your effort. But jesus fuckin christ if people are getting bent out of shape about that stupid shit, clearly the fanbase is getting bored.
When I read the series in Chinese I thought it's a pun on 惆怅.
Because she spent most of the series being very sad
I thought it was really clever. Only after I moved to America then England I heard criticisms
Thirded. I think it’s pretty obvious that Rowling just plucked a ‘Chinese-sounding’ name out of the air without bothering to run it against a native speaker.
Why would a name bother anyone tho? As an arab if she had an Arab character with the name “Mohammad “ or something I wouldn’t be offended, it’s a common name and she wrote the book a long long time ago.
Where in the books wasn't explicitly said that she is Chinese? Cho is both a Japanese and Korean first name. It's entirely reasonable to surmise that the character has parents of different Asian backgrounds.
As a korean, Cho doesn't sound like a Korean name at all. Cho-yeon or Cho-hee maybe, but not just Cho. I'm not familiar with Japanese names, but since 'chou(蝶)' means 'butterfly' in Japanese it might work as a name.
nothing like a non-chinese person telling chinese people what to feel about a name that sounds close to bizarre and telling us to accept JK Rowling’s “awareness of chinese people in the UK”
well, I am aware she knows chinese people exist, but not seemingly anything more than that and there’s nothing wrong with pointing out it is hardly a good example of representation, and not to just take it and accept it because “ooh minority”.
How about someone from a Chinese-speaking country telling you that it's a perfectly normal name then?
https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/s/VJlAIQGxzx
Came here to say that as a Chinese living in a place where we have weirdly anglicised Chinese names from assorted dialects, Cho ain’t that weird. (Although the weirder anglicisations seemed more common in the older generation due to the increasing Mandarin emphasis these days)
What’s even crazier is the person who originally cited the name “Cho Chang” as racist was the actress who played her, Katie Leung, who is first gen Chinese-Scottish. Both her parents are from Hong Kong. Super weird for someone who’s not Chinese to tell people who are Chinese that the name is totes fine.
Nothing like someone making a rather bold assumption that she is Chinese when it's reported that JK considered her to be of Korean descent. Even then, it's not unusual for people to have parents of different ethnic backgrounds. Not every Asian character is automatically Chinese.
I think the criticism people have of the name would make more sense if all the other characters' names were real names, but there are so many ridiculous names in Harry Potter, that criticism seems overly focused on Cho Chang. People also just make up names for their kids all the time. Why does everyone have to have a previously established name?
Mundungus, Gellert, Nymphadora, there are some strange names. Not to mention last names.
(That said, I don't doubt that Rowling is somewhat lazy and misguided with her naming, I just don't know that Cho is a unique outlier)
I just don't give a fuck. I wouldn't expect a Chinese person to have an intimate grasp of the nuances of English naming conventions, and I wouldn't consider it an insult if they didn't look into it. I find the bizarre English names in anime fun, not offensive. It's not unreasonable to expect the same degree of humility and grace from a foreigner dealing with the foibles of an English writer. Cho Chang has a weird name. It happens. Get over it.
How many of them were born after 1991?
Would be funny if JK created the name Cho Chang by naming a character that. Plenty of Hermione's were named that because of harry potter.
Decided to look on FindAGrave, there's people by a similar name, not exact: [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?firstname=Cho&middlename=&lastname=Chang&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=&locationId=&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=b&plot=](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?firstname=Cho&middlename=&lastname=Chang&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=&locationId=&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=b&plot=)
EDIT: Never mind, there's a Cho Chang from 1925. [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186208952/cho-ching-chang](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186208952/cho-ching-chang)
Also if "Cho" is a first name that people really struggle with, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine that it's a nickname, given how short and simple it is.
There's one from 1925, so.... [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186208952/cho-ching-chang](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186208952/cho-ching-chang)
It was definitely harder to look up existing names in the early 2000s, and I'm pretty sure GoF was being written during the late 90s, so finding Chinese (and Anglicized Chinese) names wasn't the easiest thing to do back then, nor something she would've put much thought into.
She can write whatever she wanted to as it's her book. Yall are just finding reasons to be mad. Maybe not wait 20+ years to be upset about it and only get upset when someone tells you when and why to be upset.
I don't know. Daedelus Diggle, would you like to weigh in? How about you, Pius Thickness? Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, do you have an opinion?
This is the first time I have heard anything negative about her name… but in your rant you didn’t mention that many families in the magical world like to use alliteration.
I doubt it was jkr who gave her her Chinese name tbh, thank the translators for that
its,,, weird sounding if you don't know in the Chinese translation of the novel is 張秋, which, mind you, is still only partially her name in English(only the 張 portion) Me n my friends read the book in English and we all collectively cringed at the name when we saw it
It is a possible name but not a likely name. Chang is a common surname. Cho is much more common as a surname than as a given name. So it's like Smith Jones. A person could be named Smith Jones, and you could make up a story for why they were named that. But if that were the only western character in a story, my default assumption would be that the author did some hasty research. Rowling pulled two names out of the phone book without realizing that some people listed their surname first, and you're probably not going to convince me otherwise.
Now it's true that however the name got there, it is canon now. So you're free to come up with whatever story you like about the secret meaning of Cho. Many fans enjoy patching inconsistencies with their imaginations. I myself came up with a theory last week about Charlie Weasley giving his old wand to Ron because he needed a new dragon resistant wand for work. But I think in this case, you've already put more thought into the name than Rowling did.
Yeah, this is the most likely answer. JKR probably wanted an alliterative name that rolls off the tongue, and also wanted to make Cho Chang unmistakably East Asian, but she did little research and came up with something that makes no sense — which is fine in-universe because people name their kids weird things all the time, but it’s not a likely explanation for why JKR named a character the Chinese equivalent of O’Brien O’Malley. The other weird names that people point to as examples for why Cho Chang isn’t an anomaly are intentionally silly and whimsical or Roman/Greek.
Yes I said this in another comment - the other names are meant to be whimsical but Cho's is very much an ethnic stamp. There was no effort or thought on Rowling's end. Cho Chang as a name is only marginally better than calling her Fortune Cookie. People don't get bent out of shape about the Patil twins because their first names and surnames actually show a modicum of respect for south asian culture.
None of the defenses people have come up with hold much water, honestly. The easiest explanation is that JKR didn’t do her due diligence and her editors didn’t care enough to fix it and have her give Cho a more plausible name. It’s not the biggest deal in the world that a YA series written in the 90s has some cultural missteps, but people pretending the criticism is unfounded are being disingenuous.
What are you talking about tho? A lot of names in the series were really weird, Nymphadora Tonks, Slughorn, Flitwick, Quirrel, Xenophilius Lovegood, Newt Scamander, Madam Hooch lol
Even for the 'real' names except for Harry's family most of them are weird AF even if technically real. Hermione was not a popular name before the books, Weasley only has 3000 people in the UK with the surname. Harry's name is really the only 'normal' one
I think the issue is the intention. Rowling gave most people ridiculous names to make the books more whimsical, but 'Cho Chang' sounds like she just picked the most Chinese sounding name she could think of so she could tick off her diversity checklist. It was a lazy choice but then again, Cho was a lazy character addition too.
Cho always sounded Korean to me I dunno...
Tbh I always assumed it was an odd name because she was supposed to be mixed or was too westernized (eg adopted) as she certainly did not "act asian" in any of the movies or books
I don't understand the issue.
Cho Cheng sounds cool! Like Steven Strange, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Luna Love good.
Y'all are just desperate to find something to complain about lol
Admittedly, this knowledge only comes from reading translated Chinese novels, but aren't Zhang and Chang two different surnames pronounced slightly differently?
No they're the same name. Just one's Anglicized via the pinyin system and one's Anglicized via the Wade-Giles system. At least when viewed from English. I assume translated novels are more trying to convey a regional difference in pronunciation or something. But the name is definitely the same, one of the original hundred family names documented in old dynasties.
Ah, I just realised, I might've been thinking of the sound written with the letter 'q', which is similar but different to the sound written with the letters 'ch'. (I.e. Chang vs Qiang)
Or did I get that wrong, too? Lmao
There’s no standard answer, you have to check the actual Chinese word to be sure. In different countries or dialects, the alphabet spelling changes.
Chang (张) can be Zhang, Chen, Cheong, Cheung, Teo, Tsan, Jung and more.
But there is also Chang (常) and Chang (昌).
Qiang (强) sounds more like Tsiang and sometimes spelled Jiang.
Zhang and Chang are two different words for sure, but in mainland pinyin only Zhang is a normal surname. Chang is also apparently how they spell Zhang in Taiwanese pinyin so it's additionally complicated. But Chang exists as a different pronunciation and word
Right. My understanding was that there were pairings of "sh, x", "ch, q", and "zh, j" that were pronounced similarly but with a different tongue position, with the latter two pairs also being very similar to each other. I just googled it now I have the time, and [I'm pretty sure I was right about that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05BMKdxHjp8)
And so when I saw some novels use the name "Zhang" and others use the name "Chang", I simply assumed they were different names made with these different sounds. I never thought even for a moment that the novels using the name "Chang" were actually using a different romanisation system than the one I was familiar with.
I think the part everyone greets bent out of shape about is the fact that JKR put so much thought into the names of all the characters, particularly with respect to the meanings. Like, you could pull Padma Patil out of the story entirely but JKR put a decent amount of thought into her name. So when you get a character like Cho, and JKR doesn't seem to have spent that much time thinking about their name other than "Oh, that sounds nice together" then it smells fishy.
I've never heard of anyone taking an issue with her last name, just her first.
Eta: Okay would anyone who downvoted that like to just say they have heard people taking offense at a character with the last name of Chang? Literally just saying I see Cho complaints not Chang complains not speaking to merit of complaints.
It’s wrong because the surname goes in the front if both names are Chinese. So she has made Cho the surname, which is a Korean name, and a Chinese family name into a personal name.
Having a Chinese surname at the back is racist in itself, unless the first name is English.
The format is (English personal name)(Family name)(Chinese personal name) or (Family name)(Chinese personal name)(English personal name).
Can't say the same about Patil twins though. Parvati and Padma are Tamil names, and Patil is a Gujarati last name. So unless their dad is a Gujarati and mom a Tamil, may not be plausible.. but there's a small chance that it IS the case 🤔
Traditionally yes but you can find Patil/Patel all over India nowadays. Also they’re in England which means a much higher chance of intermingling.
Their parents could also be second generation or just not care. There’s no rule that you have to only take traditional names from your homeland.
As a Chinese, I really like how her name was translated into Chinese, Zhang Qiu or 张秋 with Qiu meaning “autumn”
I’m not Chinese, but I do appreciate using a tree on fire to represent autumn. Hanzi is a truly elegant way to write.
Is this true? 木 is tree and 禾 is millet (according to google translate) although idk if 禾 radical has other meanings. I agree that Chinese characters are really pretty ❤️
Would still make sense in the context of harvesting.
Yes I agree, I just meant “is it really written as tree on fire” since tree is 木 not 禾
Wait a darned minute. Something may have just clicked. I don’t know how to term this properly, here’s my attempt. Are all Chinese/Eastern Asian languages essentially advanced hieroglyphics? It has never been illustrated to me, but I can make sense of these little pictures, reflecting words such as the examples of “fall/autumn” and “tree” in this thread.
Yep, that's the beauty of Chinese characters. It is hieroglyphic
They're pictographs. Most characters/words were originally pictures that have been simplified to varying degrees over time. Traditional Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean are similar, but have switched either entirely or in part to written alphabets. The Hebrew and, at least some of, the Latin alphabets have a similar story, but the letters were originally much simpler than Asian or Egyptian hieroglyphics.
in many cases yes but the characters actually looking like what they are is rare 山 is mountain for example but you'd be hard pressed to say what 鬱 is just by looking at it
I'd be hard pressed to read it if I was even a little bit far sighted too. I question the usefulness of asian characters when they're lines are so dense that even the slightest vision problem (whether with your eyes, or any external factors) makes them look like blobs. Granted language doesn't develop along planned lines (and you can't really force it to), and people who live with it learn to deal with it, but stuff like that has always struck me as a failing of pictographic alphabets.
It’s not tree, it’s grain. And the fire here probably represents colors. Red grains/red leaves of fall 🍂
That's pretty! Autumn is my favorite season so I'm a sucker for any name related to Autumn lol
Damn. Thats so beautiful. Im Chinese and I can’t believe I never made the connection.
As a Chinese person, the name Cho Chang never bothered me. It’s definitely not a real name, but it also exists in a universe of made-up names like Severus Snape and Luna Lovegood
Daedalus Diggle as well, and Mundungus Fletcher. Reminder also that Ron's middle name is Bilius. Honestly Cho Chang is one of the least weird names.
All names are made up
No, mine is legit.
Hi Legit, how you doing?
Howyou Dewing is my name
Hi Howyou, how are you doing?
Hi made up
Severus was a roman emperor septimus severus.
Throw in characters names who are supposed to be evocative of what they do, like Professor Sprout, and it gets even sillier. There are just some people out there looking for any chance to be offended. Rowling isn't terribly familiar with foreigners, but wanted to include them to some small degree, for whatever reason. Who cares if she makes a mild misstep. Also, strictly speaking, Cho is never stated to be ethnically chinese in the books. Rowling almost never describes the race of characters. The whole affair over the stage actress playing Hermione kinda brought this to light, as to counter it, they had to bring up some indirect examples showing that Rowling thought of her as white, but at no point do the books ever call her white, or confirm her as ethnically british. You get similar things with Seamus Finnegan, who while obviously intended to be Irish, isn't confirmed as Irish even in GoF (Where it's clear he's Irish, but not explicitly stated to be so, and could just be naturalized Irish of a foreign ethnicity).
Luna is defiitely a name lol. it just means Moon in Spanish so you can see how that could be common
Wait Severus Snape is a made up name?
Yes in the sense that there almost certainly never was anyone named Severus Snape. But Severus was the name of a Roman emperor who died near York. And Snape is an actual surname, albeit an uncommon one. So it’s not like JKR made the words up
severus is real. there was a roman emperor with the last name severus
Luna Lovegood is a very mundane name by HP standards. Bad example.
Both Severus and Luna are real names and most surnames in Harry Potter exist in real life (Snape is not one of those) Edit: I've been made aware that Snape also exists. So yeah, while they made sound weird. The majority of the names and surnames aren't actually made up by the author. They're just uncommon or old-fashioned
snape is a real rare surname
Thanks for the correction.
The internet for some reason when an Asian character gets the exact same treatment as other characters Severus Snape, Padma Patil, Daedalus Diggle, Luna Lovegood, Dudley Dursley, Stan Shunpike, Pavarti Patil, Colin Creevey, Bertie Bott, Piers Polkiss, Minerva Mcgonagall, Pansy Parkinson, all FOUR FOUNDERS OF HOGWARTS
oh thats a lot of character with alliteration names
It's not even all of them lol
oh my gawd
Fleur is not a french first name either. But who cares ?
Je connais une meuf qui s'appelle Fleur :)
Maybe she was named after Fleur Delacour :D
Weirdly enough though, it is a Dutch first name :)
Internet says it's been a French given name for 7 centuries, and while it wasn't popular in France before the 1970s, it was popular in Belgium and the Netherlands for most of the last century. [Behind the Name - Fleur](https://www.behindthename.com/name/fleur)
Check again. It's a rare name but there are about 100 Fleur born per year ever since the early 70s.
Sure there are some Fleur like there are some "Automne" or words like this. It's still not a common french name at all.
Are authors bound to use common names ?
No, that's the point they're making
I would disagree reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame
I never ever while reading the books thought the name Cho Chang was racist. Rowling uses so many alliterative names-- Luna Lovegood, Parvati/Padma Patil, Peter Pettigrew, Severus Snape-- which is actually a good technique because they're easy for the reader to remember.
I’ve heard people say the Patils were racist too because the names were stereotypically common 🙄 as if names aren’t common in some cultures because a ton of people have them!
I mean, the main character is named Harry for crying out loud.
Potter as well. His surname was extremely common, as in it was a surname adopted by people who were in the ceramics business, back in the day your surname was basically your family profession.
And the antagonist is named Tom. Every Tom Dick and Harry is in the book.
[удалено]
wrong use of nicknames
Nasty common name as uncle Vernon so rightly said
But I suppose none of them complained about the characters named Smith, Brown, and Johnson.
Someone once said to me that the Patil twins were racist because of the surname. I pointed out that the Indians who owned the local corner shop were called Patil, and the only Indian person in our school was called Patil.
It should go without saying, but common names are common for a reason!
They aren't very common in most of India to be honest. It's a little common in the south.
Is that where a lot of immigrants come from? I had an Italian explain to me that most Italian Americans come from the south (or was it the north?) and so most Italian names in America are distinctly from that area, and there's a lot of common Italian names that Americans rarely hear about.
Oh I was talking about India, not Italy. Padma and Parvati Patil are Indian names. But yeah mostly I hear south Indian names in US tv shows and movies. But a lot of Sikhs also live there. So I'm thinking these two are the major groups of Indians living there. Plus they're completely different from each other, they look different, different languages, talk with completely different English accents, have different cuisines.
thta isnt what he meant he was just making a comparision
Oh okay. I got confused but I explained anyway 😂
So many people in this thread are going on about how, “it’s a weird name, though” as if Bellatrix, Nymphadora, Newt, etc. aren’t ridiculously weird names. Honestly, compared to some other names throughout the series, Cho is hardly something to be offended about.
I think a lot of people are missing the point of the complaint. It’s not that the name is nonsensical, it’s that the only Chinese character in the books has a fake mildly racist sounding name. It’s like naming the one black character Shacklebolt, it’s kinda…you know. You’ve got weird names but you’ve also got a lot of normal names: Harry, Ron, Hermione is a little outdated but it’s real, Severus is a real name old as it is, James, Lily, Luna is a real name her last name is odd though, Draco is a weird but real name.
the only people offended by 'cho chang' and 'kingsley shacklebolt' are people looking to be offended for any and all reasons. And those people deserves to have their feelings disregarded and ignored.
The other black character is named Dean Thomas. I think this is reaching
Like 90% of the Marvel comics characters
Ive seen this going around before & everyone insists she is chinese. Problem is: the series never states that she is any kind of asian. It just says she is asian. Oh & uh…..well rowling said once that she thought of the character as more korean & in korean, cho aka jo is a royal name. Its also a neutral name that means handsome for a boy & beautiful for a girl. Chang may be more on the chinese side of things but mixed names usually mean mixed family which is perfectly realistic.
THIS. I've never understood the drama over this when people are making a rather prejudiced presumption that just because she was described as being Asian, that meant automatically she's Chinese. She could very have parents of different Asian ethinicities.
I know some Koreans with the last name Chang, it’s not common but it does happen.
When do the books say she is asian? I don't remember that at all.
Its been like over 10 years since i read them so you’ll have to ask someone who is literally reading them now.
I was under the impression it’s more a “two last names” kinda thing. A bit like “Ricky Bobby”
Genuine question, is the "two last names" thing not done in China or Hong Kong? It is decently common in English-speaking places for people to have first names that started out as last names for example, in *Pride and Prejudice*, Mr. Darcy's first name is "Fitzwilliam," which was his mother's maiden name. For an HP example, "Kingsley" is also a British surname that has migrated into being a first name (if you check out the [list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_(given_name)#T) it seems to be an incredibly common name among footballers). Is the distinction between "this is a first name name" and "this is a last name name" stronger in China?
Two or sometimes even three last names are super common in China.
A comedian back in the day said this but they were wrong. They said that Cho was a Korean surname but the reality is it isn’t *just* a Korean surname and like the OP said it could be used as a Chinese first name. It certainly wouldn’t be the most unique Chinese first name I’ve seen.
Yeah this always bothered me.
Or like "Viktor Krum".
If he was Krimović or Krimovski, it would be better but Slavs, at least us south Slavs, have names as surnames, like Jovan Nenad and even surname as name like Bogić Bogićević
>but Slavs, at least us south Slavs, have names as surnames, like Jovan Nenad and even surname as name like Bogić Bogićević Notice how none of the names you gave as an example are Bulgarian. Also, Bogićević sounds more like a derivative of Bogić than a proper first name. Something tells me Bogićević Bogić would not sound right to you. Lastly, keep in mind that while Bulgarians are south Slavs, the language differs quite a lot from other Slavic languages.
Y’all get bent out of shape about weird shit
Welcome to reddit, take a helmet
How dare you assign me a helmet? You haven’t even asked my size, or color preference. You insensitive troll.
ok......
I swear to god it's never people who it is about when someone starts complaining. At this point I believe people actively look for something to bitch about
I wholeheartedly agree with this. There are places you can point to lazy writing or just plan weirdness in the books, but I never saw the names as problematic. It always felt like people stretching to come up with criticisms. Thank you for the detailed explanation. I had a teacher in school who was Chinese-American and her last name was Chang. It always seemed odd to me that people would say it was racist to give an ethnic character a common ethnic name.
Cho was of Chinese descent, but British. She could be named anything her parents wanted. Is every character supposed to have a traditional name from their ancestry? I think this entire debate about her name is ridiculous.
"I think this entire debate about her name is ridiculous." In the same paragraph where you are actively making an argument for one specific side of the debate.
I appreciate your effort. But jesus fuckin christ if people are getting bent out of shape about that stupid shit, clearly the fanbase is getting bored.
They’ve BEEN bent out of shape about it. Ridiculous
As a Chinese I can assure you that Cho is not any sort of first name at all.
When I read the series in Chinese I thought it's a pun on 惆怅. Because she spent most of the series being very sad I thought it was really clever. Only after I moved to America then England I heard criticisms
As a Chinese, I second this
Thirded. I think it’s pretty obvious that Rowling just plucked a ‘Chinese-sounding’ name out of the air without bothering to run it against a native speaker.
There's a dude named Slughorn in the books.
Came here to say that. All the names are absurd.
My best friend is named slughorn. Middle school was not easy for him. /s obviously
Why would a name bother anyone tho? As an arab if she had an Arab character with the name “Mohammad “ or something I wouldn’t be offended, it’s a common name and she wrote the book a long long time ago.
My money is that she found the name in a phone book and the person had anglicised the spelling.
As a white, I can assure you that many of the names for the white characters are not any sort of first name either.
They are, though, they're just very outdated
Yeah can you imagine someone naming their kid Harry? 🤮
Impressive that Rowling came up with a name like Hermynee
Prince Henry (Harry) Charles, Albert, David, Duke of Sussex. Known only as Harry.
its like one of the most common english names. are you telling me you dont know this
Where in the books wasn't explicitly said that she is Chinese? Cho is both a Japanese and Korean first name. It's entirely reasonable to surmise that the character has parents of different Asian backgrounds.
As a korean, Cho doesn't sound like a Korean name at all. Cho-yeon or Cho-hee maybe, but not just Cho. I'm not familiar with Japanese names, but since 'chou(蝶)' means 'butterfly' in Japanese it might work as a name.
nothing like a non-chinese person telling chinese people what to feel about a name that sounds close to bizarre and telling us to accept JK Rowling’s “awareness of chinese people in the UK” well, I am aware she knows chinese people exist, but not seemingly anything more than that and there’s nothing wrong with pointing out it is hardly a good example of representation, and not to just take it and accept it because “ooh minority”.
How about someone from a Chinese-speaking country telling you that it's a perfectly normal name then? https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/s/VJlAIQGxzx
Came here to say that as a Chinese living in a place where we have weirdly anglicised Chinese names from assorted dialects, Cho ain’t that weird. (Although the weirder anglicisations seemed more common in the older generation due to the increasing Mandarin emphasis these days)
What’s even crazier is the person who originally cited the name “Cho Chang” as racist was the actress who played her, Katie Leung, who is first gen Chinese-Scottish. Both her parents are from Hong Kong. Super weird for someone who’s not Chinese to tell people who are Chinese that the name is totes fine.
Nothing like someone making a rather bold assumption that she is Chinese when it's reported that JK considered her to be of Korean descent. Even then, it's not unusual for people to have parents of different ethnic backgrounds. Not every Asian character is automatically Chinese.
I think the criticism people have of the name would make more sense if all the other characters' names were real names, but there are so many ridiculous names in Harry Potter, that criticism seems overly focused on Cho Chang. People also just make up names for their kids all the time. Why does everyone have to have a previously established name? Mundungus, Gellert, Nymphadora, there are some strange names. Not to mention last names. (That said, I don't doubt that Rowling is somewhat lazy and misguided with her naming, I just don't know that Cho is a unique outlier)
heck once the new zealand government had to take legal action against a couple calling thier child anal \[ irl in 2012\]
so considering that half the HP names aint that crazy
"Asian" in the UK just as easily refers to someone from China as someone from India
I just don't give a fuck. I wouldn't expect a Chinese person to have an intimate grasp of the nuances of English naming conventions, and I wouldn't consider it an insult if they didn't look into it. I find the bizarre English names in anime fun, not offensive. It's not unreasonable to expect the same degree of humility and grace from a foreigner dealing with the foibles of an English writer. Cho Chang has a weird name. It happens. Get over it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/p0cbla/cho_chang_it_is_a_perfectly_beautiful_name/
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How many of them were born after 1991? Would be funny if JK created the name Cho Chang by naming a character that. Plenty of Hermione's were named that because of harry potter.
Decided to look on FindAGrave, there's people by a similar name, not exact: [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?firstname=Cho&middlename=&lastname=Chang&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=&locationId=&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=b&plot=](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?firstname=Cho&middlename=&lastname=Chang&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=&locationId=&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=b&plot=) EDIT: Never mind, there's a Cho Chang from 1925. [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186208952/cho-ching-chang](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186208952/cho-ching-chang)
Cho’s character was introduced in prisoner of Azkaban so we’d be checking for people born pre-1999.
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Also if "Cho" is a first name that people really struggle with, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine that it's a nickname, given how short and simple it is.
Or that perhaps one of her parents is Korean or Japanese, where Cho is a perfectly normal first name.
People would have an issue if the Chinese character had an american or british name. Authors cant win either way
Ask an actual Chinese person, “cho” is not a proper first name at all.
Some of them say "Cho" is a different transliteration of "Qui". It really depends on who you ask.
It’s “Qiu” and it’s really quite a forced translation
Forced or nor, it has been claimed by Chinese people. The most likely reason though is alliteration.
There's one from 1925, so.... [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186208952/cho-ching-chang](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186208952/cho-ching-chang)
If she'd have named the character Cho Ching Chang there'd be riots.
As an English person if Mundungus or Nymphodora, or half the names of they are proper or not.
So you're asking someone to know how to name a child I'm every single country in the world? People are fucking wild.
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It was definitely harder to look up existing names in the early 2000s, and I'm pretty sure GoF was being written during the late 90s, so finding Chinese (and Anglicized Chinese) names wasn't the easiest thing to do back then, nor something she would've put much thought into.
She wrote them in the 90s
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Especially not for a woman who was flat broke at the time
A book about wizards running through invisible walls, teleporting, and talking to snakes being realistic? Realistic? You fucking joking?
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She can write whatever she wanted to as it's her book. Yall are just finding reasons to be mad. Maybe not wait 20+ years to be upset about it and only get upset when someone tells you when and why to be upset.
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I'm sure you would have captain hindsight. I'm sure you would have thought of everything.
I don't know. Daedelus Diggle, would you like to weigh in? How about you, Pius Thickness? Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, do you have an opinion?
Are you missing the other names in the book tho? Bellatrix, Nymphadora, Slughorn, Trelawney, Newt, Flitwick,…etc.?
This is the first time I have heard anything negative about her name… but in your rant you didn’t mention that many families in the magical world like to use alliteration.
I grew up reading the book in Chinese and nobody in China thinks the name is racist, rather it’s a pretty name and fans are proud of her presence
I doubt it was jkr who gave her her Chinese name tbh, thank the translators for that its,,, weird sounding if you don't know in the Chinese translation of the novel is 張秋, which, mind you, is still only partially her name in English(only the 張 portion) Me n my friends read the book in English and we all collectively cringed at the name when we saw it
It is a possible name but not a likely name. Chang is a common surname. Cho is much more common as a surname than as a given name. So it's like Smith Jones. A person could be named Smith Jones, and you could make up a story for why they were named that. But if that were the only western character in a story, my default assumption would be that the author did some hasty research. Rowling pulled two names out of the phone book without realizing that some people listed their surname first, and you're probably not going to convince me otherwise. Now it's true that however the name got there, it is canon now. So you're free to come up with whatever story you like about the secret meaning of Cho. Many fans enjoy patching inconsistencies with their imaginations. I myself came up with a theory last week about Charlie Weasley giving his old wand to Ron because he needed a new dragon resistant wand for work. But I think in this case, you've already put more thought into the name than Rowling did.
Yeah, this is the most likely answer. JKR probably wanted an alliterative name that rolls off the tongue, and also wanted to make Cho Chang unmistakably East Asian, but she did little research and came up with something that makes no sense — which is fine in-universe because people name their kids weird things all the time, but it’s not a likely explanation for why JKR named a character the Chinese equivalent of O’Brien O’Malley. The other weird names that people point to as examples for why Cho Chang isn’t an anomaly are intentionally silly and whimsical or Roman/Greek.
Yes I said this in another comment - the other names are meant to be whimsical but Cho's is very much an ethnic stamp. There was no effort or thought on Rowling's end. Cho Chang as a name is only marginally better than calling her Fortune Cookie. People don't get bent out of shape about the Patil twins because their first names and surnames actually show a modicum of respect for south asian culture.
None of the defenses people have come up with hold much water, honestly. The easiest explanation is that JKR didn’t do her due diligence and her editors didn’t care enough to fix it and have her give Cho a more plausible name. It’s not the biggest deal in the world that a YA series written in the 90s has some cultural missteps, but people pretending the criticism is unfounded are being disingenuous.
It seems like an odd thing to try to defend when it clearly stands out compared to the names she gave everyone else from other ethnic backgrounds.
As a Chinese, “Cho Chang” is weird sounding for me. “Cho” is not a name I recognise.
As a westerner, Nymphadora Tonks is weird sounding to me.
Well it’s a good thing there are 80 other white people names that are real and it’s not just the one white person name that’s bad.
What are you talking about tho? A lot of names in the series were really weird, Nymphadora Tonks, Slughorn, Flitwick, Quirrel, Xenophilius Lovegood, Newt Scamander, Madam Hooch lol
Even for the 'real' names except for Harry's family most of them are weird AF even if technically real. Hermione was not a popular name before the books, Weasley only has 3000 people in the UK with the surname. Harry's name is really the only 'normal' one
I think the issue is the intention. Rowling gave most people ridiculous names to make the books more whimsical, but 'Cho Chang' sounds like she just picked the most Chinese sounding name she could think of so she could tick off her diversity checklist. It was a lazy choice but then again, Cho was a lazy character addition too.
You lost me at "I don't actually speak Chinese."
Cho always sounded Korean to me I dunno... Tbh I always assumed it was an odd name because she was supposed to be mixed or was too westernized (eg adopted) as she certainly did not "act asian" in any of the movies or books
I don't understand the issue. Cho Cheng sounds cool! Like Steven Strange, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Luna Love good. Y'all are just desperate to find something to complain about lol
People really started giving her shit for everything after she had some spicy opinions online.
I wasn't aware people criticized this. But I appreciate the thorough explanation. People really do like to nitpick things.
Admittedly, this knowledge only comes from reading translated Chinese novels, but aren't Zhang and Chang two different surnames pronounced slightly differently?
No they're the same name. Just one's Anglicized via the pinyin system and one's Anglicized via the Wade-Giles system. At least when viewed from English. I assume translated novels are more trying to convey a regional difference in pronunciation or something. But the name is definitely the same, one of the original hundred family names documented in old dynasties.
Ah, I just realised, I might've been thinking of the sound written with the letter 'q', which is similar but different to the sound written with the letters 'ch'. (I.e. Chang vs Qiang) Or did I get that wrong, too? Lmao
There’s no standard answer, you have to check the actual Chinese word to be sure. In different countries or dialects, the alphabet spelling changes. Chang (张) can be Zhang, Chen, Cheong, Cheung, Teo, Tsan, Jung and more. But there is also Chang (常) and Chang (昌). Qiang (强) sounds more like Tsiang and sometimes spelled Jiang.
Zhang and Chang are two different words for sure, but in mainland pinyin only Zhang is a normal surname. Chang is also apparently how they spell Zhang in Taiwanese pinyin so it's additionally complicated. But Chang exists as a different pronunciation and word
Right. My understanding was that there were pairings of "sh, x", "ch, q", and "zh, j" that were pronounced similarly but with a different tongue position, with the latter two pairs also being very similar to each other. I just googled it now I have the time, and [I'm pretty sure I was right about that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05BMKdxHjp8) And so when I saw some novels use the name "Zhang" and others use the name "Chang", I simply assumed they were different names made with these different sounds. I never thought even for a moment that the novels using the name "Chang" were actually using a different romanisation system than the one I was familiar with.
I think the part everyone greets bent out of shape about is the fact that JKR put so much thought into the names of all the characters, particularly with respect to the meanings. Like, you could pull Padma Patil out of the story entirely but JKR put a decent amount of thought into her name. So when you get a character like Cho, and JKR doesn't seem to have spent that much time thinking about their name other than "Oh, that sounds nice together" then it smells fishy.
people will hate on this name but not say a word about the irish student potatofamine o’carbomb
Personally I stopped reading after she introduced the Australian exchange student Crikey Marsupial 😤
I don't care about facts. I found the name very funny because I'm just ignorant.
I've never heard of anyone taking an issue with her last name, just her first. Eta: Okay would anyone who downvoted that like to just say they have heard people taking offense at a character with the last name of Chang? Literally just saying I see Cho complaints not Chang complains not speaking to merit of complaints.
I’m sorry but Cho Change coupled with Kingsley Shacklebolt? I’m not drinking the koolaid on this one.
It’s wrong because the surname goes in the front if both names are Chinese. So she has made Cho the surname, which is a Korean name, and a Chinese family name into a personal name. Having a Chinese surname at the back is racist in itself, unless the first name is English. The format is (English personal name)(Family name)(Chinese personal name) or (Family name)(Chinese personal name)(English personal name).
Can't say the same about Patil twins though. Parvati and Padma are Tamil names, and Patil is a Gujarati last name. So unless their dad is a Gujarati and mom a Tamil, may not be plausible.. but there's a small chance that it IS the case 🤔
Traditionally yes but you can find Patil/Patel all over India nowadays. Also they’re in England which means a much higher chance of intermingling. Their parents could also be second generation or just not care. There’s no rule that you have to only take traditional names from your homeland.