Noah in Chinese: 诺亚

Noah is written 诺亚 in Mandarin (nuò yà) — one character for the surname 诺 and one for the given name. The characters are chosen to carry the sound and the sense of Noah 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.

诺亚 breaks down as 诺 (nuò) — A promise that will be kept — one word worth its weight; 亚 (yà) — Second; also Asia — near the top, never at the edge. The seal note we would put under it: A kept promise: quiet comfort.

Pinyin: nuò yà — 诺 is tone 4 (a sharp fall, like a full stop); 亚 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. 诺 (nuò) is one of the recorded Chinese surnames. The yes on the tongue: the 讠 mouth answering 若 — so be it. Ji Bu of Chu, whose one yes was said to outweigh a thousand in gold, signed no character that did not 诺; the first of the Qin’s ministers got his empire’s seal by keeping this word. Chinese answer Western names with their yes — the promise made syllable. The full account, with the character’s own etymology, is on the 诺 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. 亚 (yà) reads second; also asia — near the top, never at the edge — and its own history runs: Second, next after — and in old texts a land beyond the reach, which is how Asia itself takes the word. The shape is the second stroke of 亜, a house with a body inside it: not the chief, the runner-up, the one who comes when the first has gone. It is the word on every runner-up medal in Chinese sport.

6 other names on this site carry at least one of the same characters — 艾莲诺 for Eleanor, 诺兰 for Nolan, 诺拉 for Nora, 诺思 for North, 思诺 for Snow, 亚玛 for Amaya. 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 "rest, comfort." The ark-builder of the oldest flood story still told in English; in the 2010s the most-recorded baby boy's name in America — rest, after a very long rain. The full account — the etymology, the bearers, and why this site renders it as 诺亚 — is in the section above.