Cho Chang's Name

[greyshi]

No: HPFGUIDX 35969

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Laura Huntley" <huntleyl at m...> wrote:

> My question is:  does this imply that Cho Chang actually *has* some 
kind of meaning in any sense?  I always assumed it was pretty much a 
made up name meant to convey to the reader that Cho is Chinese.
> 
> hmm..any information on this would be helpful/interesting...

I was the one who mentioned the website. As a Chinese speaker with 
familiarity of two different Chinese dialects and other East Asian 
dialects, I never thought that Cho was Chinese. You'd really have to 
do some creative spelling and discount pronunciation to get "Cho" out 
of Mandarin or Cantonese. Cantonese being the likely Chinese language 
since (due to Hong Kong) that's the type of Chinese group that would 
most likely be in England. Based on the name alone and no other clues 
I thought Cho was Korean. Chang is a Korean last name as well and Cho 
is a Korean name.

Since Korean names are based off of Chinese names from when they were 
under Chinese control, it would be very easy to come up with a
version 
of it for the books. (Just because they were once Chinese based 
doesn't mean a Chinese person would understand them or their 
meaning anymore than we would know that someone named Ranathal is the 
same as Ronald today.)

If JKR meant for Cho to be Chinese, then she screwed up and mixed up 
distinct separate cultures. Which would be disappointing since she's 
been so careful about everthing else. So I prefer to think that she 
knows full well that Cho is Korean.

Greyshi