My name

My name in Mandarin

In Mandarin Chinese, my name is 张聪.

Zhang张 Cong聪 in Mandarin: & Cong Zhang in English (without tones):

• Zhang (张) is my family name.

• Cong (聪) is my given name.

In Standard Mandarin, both syllables are pronounced with a high-level tone (Tone 1).

If you are interested in tones, you might also like to know that in Tianjin Mandarin, the variety spoken in my hometown, both syllables are pronounced with a low-level tone (also Tone 1). Interestingly, when spoken together, the first syllable may undergo tone sandhi and surface as a rising tone.

In Chinese, family names are traditionally written before given names. To avoid confusion in English-speaking contexts, I usually reverse the order and write my name as Cong Zhang, as many Chinese people do. Sometimes Chinese names are written with the family name capitalised (ZHANG Cong) or underlined (Zhang Cong) to indicate which part is the surname.

Pronouncing it the Chinese way

For readers unfamiliar with Mandarin, a rough English approximation would be something like “Tsong Jahng/Jung”.

The initial consonant (C) in ‘Cong’ is like the ‘ts’ part of ‘cats’/’boots’ – it’s not /s/, /z/, or /t/. The rest of the syllable can rhyme with either syllable of ‘Hong Kong’.

The initial consonant (Zh) in ‘Zhang’ is very similar to the consonant in ‘John’ – it’s not a /z/ sound. The rest of the syllable can be considered to rhyme with ‘bang’.

NOT Pronouncing it the Chinese way

If you cannot or do not feel comfortable pronouncing my name in Mandarin, please don’t worry. In everyday situations, I often introduce myself as “Kong” to make things easier, and I am perfectly happy to be addressed that way.

While I appreciate the effort people make to learn the Mandarin pronunciation, I do not attach a strong sense of identity to a particular pronunciation of my name. What matters to me is the interaction, not whether every sound is produced exactly as it would be in Mandarin.

More about ‘Zhang’

Zhang is my family name and it is one of the most common surnames in China Wikipedial page. In many IPA transcriptions, the ‘zh’ sound in Mandarin Chinese is transcribed as an affricate with two retroflex consonants /ʈ͡ʂ/. I am not convinced. Sometimes I notice L2 Mandarin learners pronouncing the ‘zh’ sound a bit too retroflex-y. If you have experimental evidence (either for or against the retroflex argument) or have read such articles, please do contact me to let me know. Here I follow Li et al.’s (2017) illustration of IPA for Tianjin Mandarin link.

Some people joke that “Zhang et al.” must be the most cited author in the world. The joke is amusing because Zhang is one of the most common surnames in China, so there really are Zhangs publishing in almost every field.

It also points to an interesting cultural difference. In many East Asian naming traditions, the surname is often the least distinctive part of a person’s name. Referring to someone mainly by their surname can therefore feel a bit like referring to Chomsky simply as C.

Whether this says something about the eurocentric nature of many academic referencing conventions is a discussion for another day.

More about ‘Cong’

I love my given name, both the Chinese character and the English spelling. Cong 聪 means:

clever · intelligent · bright · perceptive

The character has a long history. The image below shows how it evolved from bronze inscriptions to its modern form.

Traditionally, the character 聰 contains three parts. On the left is an ear (耳), while the top right is a window (囱) and the bottom right is heart/mind (心). The right side tried to convey the meaning that someone has a window in their heart, which means they are clear about what’s going on about the situation. Then the left part, the ear, was added to convey the meaning of being observant by hearing. Then the left part, the ear, was added to convey the meaning of being observant by hearing. In ancient times, those who can hear well could judge better and therefore had a better chance to survive.

Therefore, 聪’s more basic meaning – which is still in use nowadays – is ‘hearing’. It also has the meaning of if one can hear well, it is not enough to be called Cong; they have to hear with their heart and be able to reflect and have insights, then that’s Cong. So nowadays, it is usually used to mean “brilliant/smart/bright/clever/intelligent”.

The underlying idea is that true understanding comes not merely from hearing sounds, but from listening attentively and reflecting on what one hears. In this sense, Cong originally referred to keen perception rather than intelligence alone.

This is a clearer image of the objects it represents:

One quotation that I particularly like comes from the Huainanzi (《淮南子》), a collection of philosophical writings from the Han dynasty:

听有音之音者聋，听无音之音者聪。–《淮南子·说林训》
Those who can hear sounds are deaf; those who can hear silence are Cong.