Levi as a Chinese name seal: 莱维

Levi is written 莱维 in Mandarin (lái wéi) — one character for the surname 莱 and one for the given name. The characters are chosen to carry the sound and the sense of Levi rather than to transliterate it letter by letter, which is how Chinese names are actually made. On this page the seal is carved in the Zhongshan King (中山王) bronze-inscription seal script, with the Academia Sinica Chongxi Small Seal (崇羲篆體) filling any character the main font lacks.

莱维 breaks down as 莱 (lái) — The herb that grows on the river bank — and the bitter weed the Book of Songs names twice, for the same plant; 维 (wéi) — To hold together, to bind; also the net-riding rope that keeps a corner square. The knot that holds. The seal note we would put under it: Two-character seal: the river herb, and the knot that holds.

Pinyin: lái wéi — 莱 is tone 2 (a rising pitch, like the start of a question); 维 is tone 2 (a rising pitch, like the start of a question). Mandarin has four tones plus a neutral tone, and getting them wrong is the most common mistake Western speakers make with Chinese names — the seal itself is unaffected, since the carving is of the written form.

Because names in Chinese are chosen, not inherited by sound. 维 (wéi) reads to hold together, to bind; also the net-riding rope that keeps a corner square. the knot that holds — and its own history runs: To hold together, to bind — and the rope a net-rides on at the corner, the one that keeps a square square. The character is 纟 beside 隹, a thread and a bird: something tethered, holding its shape. In long usage it became the verb of maintaining, 维持, which is the same idea: the thing is up only as long as the rope holds.

4 other names on this site carry at least one of the same characters — 大维 for David, 莱雅 for Layla, 维安 for Vivian, 布莱克 for Blake. Chinese names combine a family name with one or two given-name characters, so a single character can carry a hundred different people; the character page above lists every name that uses it.

Levi is a Hebrew name and a clan: from lev, ‘joined, attached,’ and the tribe of Levi, whose priestly office was defined by an attachment — joined to the house, joined to the sanctuary. In the New Testament it is a Gospel, and in ordinary English it has picked up a Victorian shadow it cannot shake. The full account — the etymology, the bearers, and why this site renders it as 莱维 — is in the section above.