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I have a book character named Aoife O'Brien O.O

I just realized this thread is actually "about" last names.

Waaaaaaay too paranoid, folks. Mwah. neutral

My last name is De'Janta. The 'J' is said as a 'Y' like they are in German.
I don't know if it can be translated as it doesn't have any meaning.

However I have been told that it similar to word in French that means mad in a funny crazy way (if the 'J' was said as a French 'J'). De jante or something, I don't know how to spell French words - it's not a language I'm so interested in.

My first name originates from the Hebrew name "Channah", meaning grace or favour. Or so BehindTheName.com claims.
So, Channah -> Hannah -> Anna -> Niina.

My surname is very confusing. It ends with a "-inen", which is a common suffix for names, especially those originating from the eastern Finland, and can make the surname look like an adjective (whereas adjectives those end with an -inen, such as valkoinen (white), are turned to surnames when the letter I is removed; Valkonen), yet the word itself has no actual meaning. I looked it up once, and only got this far:
[censored for my own good] <- Pirinen <- Piri <- ?
emo Well, piri occurs when describing immense quantities of liquid in a container, but... It doesn't quite have the potential to start off a tradition of surnames, so it's propably derived from a loanword of some sort.

My last name is Thudium.

I've been trying to figure it out for ages..I know it's German but it seems like it has some Latin roots as well. So..if anyone has a clue do tell.

My full name is Rachel Joyce Thudium, Rachel translates into the Hebrew word for sheep or a female sheep and I've also seen it translated into "innocent", and Joyce translates into "joy."

So for me idealy, my first two names together mean "innocent joy." xd

Erm, well I know that my first name means "dear" or "sweetheart" in French.
My name is Sheryl so... Sheryl -> Cheryl -> Cheri -> Sweetheart, ya?

But I have nooo idea where my last name came from. But I do know that it's the name of some kinda of strip bar in Mexico.
gonk

I sort of have two names, Lawrence Luk Long Wong, which is the name that appears on all my official documents and everything, and 黃律朗, which is my other name.

My middle name (luk long) is a transliteration of my Chinese name (jyutping: leot6 long5). This practice is actually quite common for overseas born Asians - you may be surprised to know that almost every overseas born Chinese whose first name is not a typically chinese one will probably have a chinese name too.

I actually asked my dad why my name was transliterated with a 'k' instead of a 't' or something, but he basically told me I was pedantic, and it was a really trivial sound difference. rolleyes

It gets kinda annoying having to explain the concept of having two names to someone, so I just sorta don't mention it. I usually get the response of "So Lawrence isn't actually your real name?!?"

Anyway, as my name is written with Chinese characters, it's easy to find equivalents for the characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese:
キ・リツロウ, 황율낭, Hoàng luật lãng

And for extra fun, in bopomofo (for Mandarin pronunciation) it is ㄏㄨㄤˊㄌㄩˋㄌㄤˇ (huang2 luu4 lang3 if anyone is interested).

So basically, Lawrence means "Man of Laurentum(sp?)" which is somewhere in Ancient Rome I assume. Wong means "yellow", which often makes people laugh when I tell them, as there's the whole Asian=Yellow thing.

黃 = Yellow
律 = Law (I think this is quite cool, as my name is LAWrence)
朗 = apparently means bright, but I know this character mainly from the compound 開朗, which means (roughly) "cheerful".