With the advent and rise of the Trump Administration, many students have asked me curiously on what is the Mandarin name of Donald Trump?
Well, in Mainland China, Trump is named 特朗普 (tèlǎngpǔ). This is because for foreign names, those in Mainland China usually prefer to transliterate every consonant sound from the original name into the Chinese name, adding extra vowels to fit Mandarin phonetics.
However, interestingly, Taiwan, Trump is called 川普 (chuānpǔ). Taiwan prefers to create shorter names that often sound more Chinese. Overseas Chinese sometimes use the Taiwanese names, and sometimes the Mainland Chinese names.
The same thing happen on President Harry S. Truman. By the orginal prounciation, his name should be translated as ‘楚门’. But XinHua news agency gave the standard that Chinese had to call him ‘杜鲁门’ which sounds [tərumən]!