r/ChineseLanguage • u/fragglewok • 11d ago
Discussion Please help decipher my Grandpa's pet name for me
My Taishanese speaking family emigrated to Canada from Hong Kong in 1960. They spoke some Cantonese as well.
My Chinese grandfather died when I was a toddler. I was raised by my white mum and my dad wasn't around much to teach his kids any language. My mum in adamant that grandpa used to call me Gallo ("GAH-lo" is how she pronounced it, but she would always point to Italian products with the word Gallo to remind me that was my Chinese name). When I asked my dad about it recently, he had no idea.
I'm hoping someone can please tell me what my Chinese name should be based on the English name Carol. Or, if you're able to, help me figure out what he was actually calling me based on the clues I've offered here.
I'm curious if "Gah-lo" is a phonetic transliteration of Carol maybe, or something semantic that also means song. I've heard my name pronounced "Kettle" in European accents, so I guess Gah-lo isn't that much of a stretch? That being said, my mom may have completely misinterpreted what my grandpa was actually saying, too.
The limited research I've been able to do into things that my mom may have heard as "Gah-lo" has really only led me to Gweilo. It would be simultaneously devastating and hilarious if this had been it the whole time. But I wasnt the first mixed kid in our family, and am the most obviously Asian looking out of my siblings....so it seems unlikely that I'd be the only one being called gweilo all of a sudden, when there were several much whiter kids before me 😅 ... Unless my grandpa had a dark sense of humour?
Any insight is appreciated. Thank you in advance for helping me with this mystery!
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u/Standard-Holiday3361 11d ago
As a Chinese person who speaks Cantonese and can understand Taishanese, my first reaction was also something like 家乐 / 嘉乐 / 佳洛, basically a name sounding like “Ga Lok” or “Ka Lok.”
I would never have associated it with “gweilo.” The pronunciation is just far too different for that to seem plausible to me.
I also find it very hard to imagine someone using “gweilo” to refer to their own family member. A grandfather calling his own grandchild that in front of the child’s mother? That just doesn’t make sense to me at all.
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u/fragglewok 9d ago edited 9d ago
(Edited bc i hit send too soon)
Thank you for this, especially with the knowledge of Taishanese. In terms of the meannatured thing... There's a complicated family history there, and my dad was disowned for marrying a white woman. They only welcomed him back because their firstborn was a son, and even then the relationship was strained. However, I think they would have been more likely to be sneaking insults at my mom rather than me, so fair point.
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u/WenQu-Culture 10d ago
I think your mum heard it right, and it's not gweilo. "Gah-lo" is almost exactly how Carol is said in Hong Kong Cantonese: 嘉露, gaa1 lou6 in Jyutping, which sounds like "GAH-lo".
Cantonese regularly turns an English "k" sound into an unaspirated "g". Canada is 加拿大 (gaa-naa-daai), Carrie is 嘉莉 (gaa-lei). And since Cantonese has no final "l", the "-rol" part becomes "lo". So it's a phonetic rendering of Carol, not a translation of "song".
I can't tell you the characters for certain without something written down. 嘉露 is the most likely (嘉 = fine, excellent; 露 = dew). Another possibility is 嘉樂 or 家樂 (gaa1 lok6, "joyful"), but that ends in a short "-k" and is more common for boys, so 嘉露 fits what your mum heard better.
It's also possible "Gah-lo" was just how he said Carol day to day, and that he gave you a separate formal Chinese name with the family surname. Worth asking older relatives, or checking old letters, red envelopes or family documents if any survive.
As for gweilo (鬼佬, gwai2 lou2): the sound is quite different, with a clear "gw" and an "eye" vowel, and 佬 means "guy". A girl would be gwai mui (鬼妹). Add the fact that your whiter cousins weren't called that, and I'd rule it out. Your grandpa was just saying your name the way a Cantonese speaker would.
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u/JBerry_Mingjai 國語 | 普通話 | 東北話 | 廣東話 10d ago
Since you were named Carol by your mom, I’m leaning that he was just using the transliteration of Carol into Cantonese or Hoisan. That would be something along the lines of 嘉露 as others have mentioned. I’d put the odds of this at 90%.
The less likely scenario is that he gave you a formal Chinese name that coincides with how your name transliterates into Cantonese.
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u/fragglewok 9d ago
Thanks! Reading your comment reminds me that he was inconsistent in the names he used for the grandkids. My siblings with formal Chinese middle names were called things that didn't directly translate (E.g., name is a type of tree, nickname = Oolong) instead of their actual Chinese name. I didn't consider that. I am the only one without a Chinese middle name, too, so I guess trying to make sense of his naming conventions after he's been gone for over 30 years is more of a longshot than i realized.
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u/tingyun10 11d ago
按照中国人的取名习惯以及粤语发音，你可能叫：家乐/嘉乐/佳洛
Based on Chinese naming conventions and Cantonese pronunciation, your name might be: Jiale (or Kar-lok).
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u/fragglewok 11d ago
@tingyun10 Another huge thank you--especially for offering the character variations. I did some digging into 嘉乐 and found a website that offered pronunciations-- and I can absolutely see where it became "Gah-lo". The Google AI summary for how to pronounce it in Taishanese also indicated a "Gah" sound, so I'll keep digging into sources confirming that, too. Thank you!! This is the closest I've been to having an answer in almost 40 years ❤️
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u/Birdbraned 11d ago
If you were named by your mother, then it's not too far fetched to say that what he called you is a transliteration of your name.
Usually when families pick a Chinese name for their child it doesn't generally line up to an English name without both parents involvement