Chop translation

[asterroc]

I have a Chinese chop, in traditional characters. It is possible that it contains my name in Chinese (Szu Sung-Eh), or it could be something else entirely ("licensed prostitute"). I can no longer write my Chinese name, but I think I would recognize it if hand written, and certainly the last symbol doesn't look like anything I recognize (that and my name is three parts, not four).

Below the cut are images of the stamp/print, and the chop itself. Click for bigger.


Print


Chop (since it is a stamp, it is backwards of how it prints)



If you know what it says, please enlighten me.

Edit: A mirror image of the chop and further discussion can be found here.

Comments

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

You have apparently presented an interesting challenge to my friend. The character set is "old man", a very old style. And it is poorly drawn, some of the characters are sideways.

The last character is basically just means "this is a chop".

The first three might be a transcription (in the linguistic sense) of your name in English with similar sounding words in Mandarin. Is your name something like "Suzanne"? But as a Mandarin phrase it seems to mean nothing.

He is still trying to puzzle it out.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Interesting! It may actually be a transliteration of my Chinese (Shanghai) name into "old man". I prefer to write my Chinese name in English as "Su Sung-Eh", but another possible English transliteration of it might be "Tsu Zong-Ah". (I do not actually know any of the official accepted ways of writing Chinese words in English, so I'm just going based upon what they sound like to me.) Point is, my actual Chinese name may be consistent with the "Suzanne" you mention this chop as apparently sounding like phonetically. (Suzanne is not my actual name.) The "Su/Tsu" is a transliteration into Shanghai of my actual family name (the name is Jewish in origin), and the "Sung-Eh" or "Zong-Ah" is Shanghai for "heart and liver (literal) / heart and soul (figurative)". It is my understanding that Shanghai is very similar to Mandarin.

Please pass this on to your friend in case it helps. I'm glad he's enjoying the challenge. :)