Matthew in Chinese: 马特

Matthew is written 马特 in Mandarin (mǎ tè) — one character for the surname 马 and one for the given name. The characters are chosen to carry the sound and the sense of Matthew 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.

马特 breaks down as 马 (mǎ) — Horse — steadiness in speed, the patience of the road; 特 (tè) — Distinguished, unusual — the one mark above the herd. The seal note we would put under it: The gift that runs alone.

Pinyin: mǎ tè — 马 is tone 3 (a dip down and back up); 特 is tone 4 (a sharp fall, like a full stop). 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.

Yes. 马 (mǎ) is one of the recorded Chinese surnames. The horse’s surname. She, a general of Zhao, won so high a title as Horse-Service Lord that his house simply shortened it and kept 马. Two thousand years later Ma still carries horses in its strokes, and its most famous bearer — Yuan, the Han general who buried his hero in a horse-hide — galloped the name into the classics. The full account, with the character’s own etymology, is on the 马 surname page — and that lineage is the reason a Western name can borrow the character for a surname at all.

Because names in Chinese are chosen, not inherited by sound. 特 (tè) reads distinguished, unusual — the one mark above the herd — and its own history runs: A cow, 牛, and a temple, 寺 — the standard etymon for a bullock yoked beside the ox, the one that pulls differently. The word was always about difference, and the meaning widened to 特别, the special one. That it also means a talent and a tariff is the same idea run twice: something distinguishable.

7 other names on this site carry at least one of the same characters — 艾丝特 for Aster, 怀特 for Wyatt, 卡特 for Carter, 马山 for Mason, 斯特拉 for Stella, 韦思特 for West, 西马 for Thomas. 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.

Hebrew "gift of God." The tax collector called off his bench to become an evangelist; the name's whole meaning is the gift nobody can earn. The full account — the etymology, the bearers, and why this site renders it as 马特 — is in the section above.