Selene in Chinese: 瑟莲

Selene is written 瑟莲 in Mandarin (sè lián) — one character for the surname 瑟 and one for the given name. The characters are chosen to carry the sound and the sense of Selene 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.

瑟莲 breaks down as 瑟 (sè) — The se, the ancient zither of fifty strings — harmony many-voiced; 莲 (lián) — The lotus — the moon flower of still ponds, clean out of mud. The seal note we would put under it: Two-character seal: moonlight as zither-sound and a lotus at night.

Pinyin: sè lián — 瑟 is tone 4 (a sharp fall, like a full stop); 莲 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.

5 other names on this site carry at least one of the same characters — 艾莲诺 for Eleanor, 玛莲 for Maren, 若瑟 for Joseph, 瑟拉 for Sela, 瑟瑞娜 for Serena. 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.

Selene carries the sense The moon (Greek). The Chinese name 瑟莲 answers it with 瑟 (The se, the ancient zither of fifty strings) and 莲 (The lotus) — chosen for sound and sense together, the way a Chinese parent chooses a name rather than the way a wire service transliterates one. The full account — the etymology, the bearers, and why this site renders it as 瑟莲 — is in the section above.