李提摩太 (Li Timotai) 🔊

Life and public context

Timothy Richard was a Welsh missionary, educator and translator who worked in China in the late Qing period. His Chinese name 李提摩太 uses a real surname and a longer given-name rendering, making it useful for comparing naturalized names with more transliterated scholarly public names.

Name story

李提摩太 keeps more of the foreign sound than names such as 利玛窦 or 汤若望, but 李 is a real surname and the full name became a recognizable Chinese public label in modern Chinese historical writing.

What English speakers can learn

Some historical Chinese public names remain more transliterated than natural. They are still useful examples because they show how much length and foreign sound a Chinese reader may tolerate in a documented public identity.

Source: Timothy Richard biography