From Chen No. 3 to Instant Noodle Sister, nickname games strike a chord in China

BEIJING • While sports fans worldwide marvel at the aerial contortions of skier Eileen Gu, many in China are professing their admiration for one "Frog Princess".

Americans who watched Nathan Chen spin his way to a gold may be confused to see Chinese figure skating aficionados refer knowingly to someone named "Chen No. 3".

And although the name of Russian figure skating star Anna Shcherbakova can be a mouthful for some Chinese-speaking fans, a sobriquet that translates to "Daughter of a Wealthy Family" rolls far more easily off their tongues.

"Nicknames are easy to remember," said Zhou Yuyao, 22, a figure skating fan from Hebei province. "Russian names are too long."

Every culture and country coins nicknames, but few do it these days with the ingenuity and gusto of Chinese fans on the Internet.

The motivation behind this phenomenon, as Zhou noted, is fairly simple. Official phonetic transliterations of international names into Chinese can be long, unwieldy and in producing strings of unrelated characters, basically nonsensical.

But that same linguistic complexity makes the process of creating nicknames, for both domestic and international public figures, fruitful and fun for Chinese fans.

Methodologies for making them vary, from the simple to the puzzlingly referential: People zero in on physical characteristics or personality traits; play around with phonetic and visual puns; or toy with references to public utterances, news events or some bit of obscure history.

Eteri Tutberidze, who coaches several Russian figure skating stars, has an oddball nickname - "Instant Noodle Sister" - that makes a lot more sense once you have seen her dense, blond curls.

This sort of evocative nicknaming has deep cultural roots in China, according to Shaohua Guo, a professor of Chinese language at Carleton University.

Children receive nicknames to offset the earnestness built into the meanings of their given names. Even for adults, the relatively low number of common surnames in China, as well as given names that are typically only one or two characters long, provide more incentives for differentiating aliases.

Gu's "Frog Princess" nickname, which she uses on her Chinese social media accounts, stems from a green helmet she once wore in competition.

While that origin seems simple enough, Chinese fans online have been using other nicknames this month that might require more explanation for outsiders.

Take "Guai Ling". Here, fans created a phonetic smoothing of the first two syllables of Gu's Chinese name, Gu Ailing, to make a well-meaning joke about the fact that the she speaks Chinese with a Beijing accent.

"It is a way for fans to express their affection for athletes," said Yao Jiahui, 23, a figure skating fan from Hunan province.

Yao, referring to Chen by his Chinese name, Chen Wei, noted that some fans called him "Tigger", using the Chinese translation for the Winnie the Pooh character.

"This comes from the popular recognition of his superior physical fitness and excellent jumping ability," Yao said of Chen.

One of Chen's other nicknames, "Chen No. 3", requires some understanding of international figure skating history.

In the eyes of Chinese skating fans, he is the third prominent skater from North America with the Chinese surname Chen, which, in English, can also be spelled Chin, Chan or Tan, depending on the original dialect. Before him came Tiffany Chin, who was the US national champion in 1985, and Patrick Chan, the 2018 Olympic gold medallist from Canada.

And then there is "K Baby", the widely used nickname of Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian figure skating phenom, that nods to her youthful virtuosity.

NYTIMES