亲爱的读者朋友，新年快乐！

我最近空闲的时间都在搞一个维基网站，现在公布出来，希望得到你的帮助。

http://www.haidongji.com/wiki

我一直想做一个关于中外名字的网站。汉语拼音是从1982年才正式成为国际标准，在此之前，韦氏拼音占据主导地位。因此，很多的中国的人名和地名，在历史文件、书籍、档案、新闻、通信中等使用了韦氏拼音，这给阅读和研究造成了一些不便。当然还有其它系统，但它们的影响都很小。

另一方面，外文名字的中译，由于政治和历史的原因，在大陆、港澳、台湾等大中华地区并不一致，这也给交流带来了不便。

因此，我有建立网站的想法已经很久了，但光想顶个屁用！在征求了一些朋友的建议后，大约两个月前，我开始了网站的搭建。有家庭和孩子的中年人很少有时间，我也不例外，所以到现在才公布。这也是我博客好久没更新的原因之一。

因为是维基网站，所以我特别希望你的帮助。我会抽时间写一个如何参与文档，但从现在开始，你可以在网站里搜”Please enter here”，然后进入页面，点击偏左上方的Edit this page，就可以填入相关你所知道的信息。如果你的改动比较大，最好能加上简短的说明（Edit summary）。我作为充满善意的大独裁者，保留最终的编辑权。该网站现阶段侧重于中英名字的翻译，等条件和资源成熟，会加上法语、德语、俄语、西班牙语、阿拉伯语等其它语种。

至于那个奇怪的题目，一方面那些名字就是这个维基的研究对象，另一方面我感觉也挺好玩的：不光是那几个名字，（特别是那个英文名字），历史有时也很荒唐幽默。到这儿看看。

多谢！

Happy New Year, dear reader!

Due to different romanization systems used in the past, the same Chinese people and places’ names were rendered differently in English, and possibly in other languages like French, German, and Russian too. For English, Wade-Giles was used for the better half of a century before Pinyin took over and became ISO standard in 1982. As a result, Wade-Giles names were present in many books, historic documents, treaties and such. I don’t know French, German, and Russian, but I suspect the same, and I think there is a treasure trove of China related documents there, given the history in the last 150 years or so.

For example, it would be fun to be able to read Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai’s records in the French archives, both are well known. But what about less well-known people and places in books and missionary and correspondents’ documents? Wouldn’t it be nice if there is a place where this information can be easily looked up? Yeah, there is Wikipedia, but I thought a dedicated site for this purpose would be nice.

Now to the other side of the coin: foreign names’ rendering in Chinese can also be interesting, because mainland, HK, and Taiwan all have its own systems. To be honest, I don’t know what the standard, or if there is one currently, for translating foreign names into Chinese. Prior to liberation, name translations were at least consistent before the founding of the PRC, such as translations for famous philosophers like 尼采(Nietzsche)，叔本华(Arthur Schopenhauer), 马斯洛(Abraham Moslow). But different characters were used for names introduced into Chinese after liberation across those 3 regions, and books and documents had been written with those different names for the same person or place.

And there are transcribed names for gadgets, drinks, song/movie/book titles. I’d like to collect that information too.

I will write a “how to participate guide”. In the meantime, if you’d like to help, just search for “Please enter here”, and edit away if you know what to fill. As a benevalent dictator, I reserve the final right in approve, modify, and/or reject changes.

As to the strange title of this post, well, those name are certainly subjects of this wiki. At the same time, I just thought it was kinda funny.

Thanks!