Character by character
Why it works
礼 social custom; manners; courtesy; rites; 贤 virtuous, worthy, good; able. A given name a foreign resident of China actually took.
Why it reads this way
礼贤 (Lǐ Xián) is an editorial Chinese given name. 礼 means social custom; manners; courtesy; rites. 贤 means virtuous, worthy, good; able. The feel is balanced, leaning male. It's a curated combination rather than a classical citation, so use it as a starting point and check the full name with a Chinese speaker.
Documented use
卫礼贤（Richard Wilhelm），汉学家，名字由 自取 所取。名希圣，字礼贤，表达对中华圣贤的仰慕
This is one of the real Chinese names collected in our corpus of foreign residents' names; we list it because somebody actually uses it, not because it ranks in any popularity table.
Sound
The pinyin is Lǐ Xián. Say it slowly, then at normal speed. If a tone feels difficult, practice the syllable alone before putting the full name together. A Chinese speaker will usually understand an imperfect tone in context, but the closer you get, the more natural the name feels.
How to introduce it
“My Chinese name is 礼贤. 礼 — social custom; manners; courtesy; rites; 贤 — virtuous, worthy, good; able.”
A common full-name pattern would be 李礼贤 (Lǐ Lǐ Xián), using the surname 李. You can also use no surname at all.
Source
外籍人士中文名语料库与频率统计.xlsx（本地整理；含台“内政部”户政司 2001-2015 结婚登记外籍人士中文名 Top10、新华社译名室《世界人名翻译大辞典》、人民日报海外版/光明网/环球时报及高校报道） · 卫礼贤 Richard Wilhelm 汉学家
This page is editorial. A name can be a good fit even if it is not in our corpus; use the name checker for an existing name, or the Finder for a new one.