iWeiba

Names / 芝兰

Given name Chinese name

芝兰 Zhī Lán

Noble and fragrant elegance, like rare orchids and medicinal herbs blooming quietly in a misty valley.

Given name: 芝兰 Usage: female Era: modern
means orchid 兰
Zhī Lán

Character by character

芝
zhī

sesame; a purplish or brown mushroom thought to have miraculous powers; 'a divine and felicitous plant' (Karlgren)

兰
lán

orchid

Why it works

A noble, fragrant elegance reminiscent of precious orchids.

Why it reads this way

芝兰 (Zhī Lán) is an editorial Chinese given name. 芝 means sesame; a purplish or brown mushroom thought to have miraculous powers; 'a divine and felicitous plant' (Karlgren). 兰 means orchid. The feel is noble, fragrant, elegant, leaning female. It's a literary two-character given name, so use it as a starting point and check the full name with a Chinese speaker.

Sound

The pinyin is Zhī Lán. 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 芝兰. 芝 — sesame; a purplish or brown mushroom thought to have miraculous powers; 'a divine and felicitous plant' (Karlgren); 兰 — orchid.”

A common full-name pattern would be 李芝兰 (Lǐ Zhī Lán), using the surname 李. You can also use no surname at all.

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.