琳 lín — what the character means in a Chinese name

What 琳 means in a Chinese namelín

3,931 real names in the 1.14M-name corpus♂ 7 · ♀ 3,92412 strokesdata & verification

tier B

美玉。

Fine jade — heard before seen.

1 处原典 · 1 部典籍 · 全部可核

璆锵鸣兮琳琅 Jade you hear

抚长剑兮玉珥，璆锵鸣兮琳琅。

I stroke the long sword with its jade guard; the pendants ring — a chiming of fine jades.

楚辞 · 东皇太一 · our translation

琳琅 is the sound jades make against each other. A name takes both the stone and its ring. 「琳琅」是玉相击的声音。名字用「琳」，取的是玉，也取这个「有声音」的质地。

琳琅美玉琳之琳琅琼琳

In a name

The stone, and the sound it makes.

「琳」是玉，也是玉的声音。

1 sourced citation · every line verified character-for-character against a versioned corpus — read or verify the dataset