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How to Write Your Name in Thai & Everything You Need to Know About Thai Nicknames

One standout cultural difference between Thailand and the West is ‘names'.

If you have spent time in Thailand you will have noticed that some Thai names are often quite long, that most people don't use their birth name, that most people have a nickname, and that many people adopt Western nicknames.

In fact, the whole naming culture in Thailand is very interesting.

Learning to write your own name in Thai is also a good way to start familiarizing yourself with the Thai alphabet. You can also adopt a Thai nickname if you want.

In this post I'll look at how the most common Western names are written in Thai, and explore nickname culture –  both past and present.

I also give you some tips on how to start writing Thai. It's not as hard as you think.

Thai Nickname Culture

By now you may have noticed that Thai people generally don't use their birth name, but rather a nickname.

This nickname is usually adopted from a young age may be given by parents or other family members, friends at school, or simply adopted by the person themselves.

A Thai person may also adopt a Western nickname if they go to study or live abroad.

Thai names are often quite long and therefore a nickname is easier. My wife's name is 15 letters long, so her nickname is a blessing!

Nicknames can also be used to describe a person's personality and nature. Nicknames are also fun, thus the word for nickname in Thai…

The word for nickname in Thai is ‘cheu len‘. The literal translation is ‘name play' (len = play), but Thai uses the word order ‘noun adjective' instead of ‘adjective noun', therefore the actual translation is ‘play name'.

  • ชื่อเล่น (cheu len) – nickname

Your real name is classified as ‘cheu jing'

  • ชื่อจริง (cheu jing) – real name

Even King Bhumibol Adulyadej had a nickname. His nickname was Ong Lek (องค์เล็ก); Ong is a numerative noun for kings, princes, princesses, priests, images of Buddha, gods, angels, palaces and pagodas, and “Lek”, as you may know, means “little (one)”.

Up until 10 to 20 years ago you would hear the same nicknames over and over again. People tended to adopt nicknames that represented aspects of nature such as cute animals or flowers and other nature inspired things.

Here's a few classic female nicknames you've probably come across up:

  • Maew: แมว (cat),
  • Nok: นก (bird),
  • Poo: ปู (crab),
  • Pla: ปลา (fish),
  • Kwang: กวาง (deer)
  • Nahm /náam: น้ำ (water)
  • Má-naao: มะนาว (lemon)

The Top 10 Thai Nicknames

 In modern times the kids are getting more creative. I've heard everything from a boy named ‘Google' to a girl named ‘Babe'. My niece has a friend called ‘cartoon' (การ์ตูน)!

A number of today's nicknames are Western influenced.

Here's Thailand's Top 10 most common Thai nicknames, as surveyed by the The Ministry of Culture:

  • May: เมย์  – like the month of May
  • Ploy: พลอย  – meaning a precious stone or gem, and after the famous Thai ladyboy of the same name.
  • Nan /naen: แนน  – For a girl. This is not a Thai name but a western inspired name – which funnily means ‘grandma' in the UK.
  • Ice /ái: ไอซ์  – Cool as ice! up
  • Bank: แบงค์ – Money inspired, no doubt.
  • Fah /fáa:  ฟ้า – A girl's name meaning ‘sky’, and usually short for นางฟ้า /naang-fáa/ meaning ‘angel’
  • New /niu: นิว  – works for both boys and girls.
  • Ball /bon: บอล  – like foot-ball. A boy's name.
  • Beer /bia: เบียร์  – Yep, strange but true. Again, a boy's name.

Perhaps the most out there boy's names I've heard are ‘status' (สเตตัส) and ‘airbus' (แอร์บัส).

I recently heard the name ‘Cream' for a girl, too.

learn-to-write-thai

=> Click on the play button above to go to the Thai writing video lesson <=

Creating Your Own Nickname

So you can give yourself any nickname you want. The only real requirement is that you make it very short, and inoffensive.

But then if your name is short already, like mine (Peter),  then it kind of defeats the object.

If I had to choose one I'd probably go for something like ‘music', or something really silly like ‘wolf'.

What About Thai Surnames

Surnames have only been legally required in Thailand since 1913, when a law was introduced by King Rama VI (King Jajiravudha) that made it mandatory.

You'll notice in Thailand the surnames are only used for official purposes and when times are referring to others they will use the prefix Khun followed by the person's first name.

  • นามสกุล (naam sa-guun) – surname/family name

Funny Thai Names!

You may occasionally come across a Thai name sounds rather funny, like the name ‘Nan', which whenever I see written reminds me of my late grandmother – when Thais say it's actually pronounced Naen.

One name in particular the always draws a little disbelief from foreign visitors is the name ‘Porn' (พร).  this is really common in Thailand and always think it's bad manners to point out what it means in English because like the name ‘Poo', it doesn't have the same connotation in Thai.

In Thai, Porn is actually a lovely name. It forms part of a number of names, including ‘Suraporn' and ‘Jiraporn', and means ‘gift' or ‘blessing' – thus why parents like giving this name to their kids.

How to Write Your Name In Thai

Below I have written out some common boys and girls names in Thai. If your name isn't listed, leave a comment and I will try to add it to the list.

Please bear in mind that there will be more than one way to write your name in Thai, and this is because Western words and names don't always translate exactly into Thai script.

Moreover, the way Thais pronounce Western names isn't exactly as they are spoken in English. For example, Denise would be pronounced  and therefore written Dee-nit.

The easiest way to write your name in Thai is to find a Thai letter that corresponds to the pronunciation of your Thai name.

For example, if your name is “Maya,” you can use the letter ม for “m,” า for “a,” ย for “y” and า for “a.” You just need to put them together and write มายา for “Maya”.

write-name-thai

Boys:

  • Charlie – ชาร์ลี
  • Dan  – แดน
  • Daniel – แดเนียล
  • George – จอร์จ
  • Ian – เอียน
  • Jack – แจ็ค
  • Jacob – จาค็อบ
  • James – เจมส์
  • John – จอห์น
  • Mark  – มาร์ค
  • Michael – ไมเคิล
  • Paul – พอล
  • Peter – ปีเตอร์
  • Scott – สก๊อต
  • Thomas – โทมัส

Girls:

  • Anne –  แอน
  • Claire – แคลร์
  • Denise – เดนิส
  • Emma – เอ็มม่า
  • Elizabeth – เอลิซาเบธ
  • Julie – จูลี่
  • Joy – จอย
  • Kimberly – คิมเบอร์ลี
  • Laura – ลอร่า
  • Maria – มาเรีย
  • Olivia – โอลิเวีย
  • Rachel – เรเชล
  • Sue – ซู
  • Sandra – แซนดร้า

How to Start Learning to Write Thai

If you want to learn  how to write your name in Thai  then you will need to start learning to write Thai. This can seem not an overwhelming task considering that there are 44 consonants and 32 vowels that look completely different to the alphabet that you are used to.

But don't let that put you off. You can start learning to speak and write Thai very easily.

I recommend learning one word per day and learning to write one letter per day. This might seem like a slow way to learn but you will quickly realise that actually you can increase this to 2 or 3 words a day once you start becoming familiar with the language.

You don't need to learn to write Thai to speak Thai, but of course in the long term it is going to be very useful.

There are a number of foreign nationals living in Thailand who can speak Thai conversationally but can't read Thai because they have learnt Thai from everyday interactions and from their partners. However I recommend learning to speak Thai and practicing your Thai alphabet on the side.

Get as much conversational practice in as you can while slowly learning the consonants and vowels too.

The way I learned the alphabet was to write one consonant per page on a notepad. Then I would look at each page, close my eyes, say the name and visualise drawing the symbol. After a while I was able to say a letter and then draw it.

=> Start with These Thai Alphabet Video Lessons

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    • James E says

      In Thai, words don't start with a vowel. So to get around that they have a weird letter "อ" au aang which can at as both a vowel and a consonant that has no sound. It has the short "o" sound like in "on" or "awe" (when you can hear it, at the beginning of a word it's always silent). With Ariane my guess would be something like อะรีาน or อะรีอัน depending on whether you want a long-a and live ending (first spelling) or a short-a and a short-n sound (the second). Just copy and paste them into a translator to see which one you prefer.
      Reply

    • James E says

      You're out of luck. There is no "sh" sound it Thai. You've got to choose between "ch"- ช which would give you ชีลา or ชีละ or "s" - สีลา or สีละ. The difference "ะ" or "า" is the length of the "a" sound. Copy and paste them into a translator to see which you like the sound of. One thing to remember is that Thai nicknames are usually about *something* (TTL has a post on this) and of the choices สีลา means "donkey" and สีละ means "each color". You can also tweak the pronunciation even further with tone marks but that can be something you can figure out as you learn to write and read Thai.
      Reply

    • James E says

      My take would be ฮารุยูกิ or ฮะรุยูกิ for Haruyuki. The difference is the "a" sound. Haru is ฮะรุ or ฮารุ. You can paste these into Google Translate and see which you like better.
      Reply

  10. James E says

    Note to everybody: If you want to know how to spell your name in Thai you can't just spell it in Roman letters. You also need to give some idea of how to pronounce it and its origin, like English, German, Arabic, whatever. This transliteration is kind of fun to do (and excellent practice) but how you spell something in Thai has nothing to do with how it's spelled in Roman, Cyrillic, or whatever. For example Beqs request for Bequio could be pronounced several different ways depending on where they were from. And none of them would be spelled the same in Thai. Throw us a bone here, okay?
    Reply

    • James E says

      Is this a western name or a Thai name? It matters because if a western name simple transliteration can end up in silly/embarrassing/profane territory very quickly. For example, Mo spelled โม is a short form for "watermelon". You also need to know how you want to say it. Moe with a longer (duration) "o" is the watermelon one, where โมะ has got a very short (duration) "o" (but it doesn't mean anything in Thai). But, if it's a Thai name, you'll need to know what the meaning of the word used as the name is. Otherwise all bets are off.
      Reply

    • James E says

      Yikes! "Nalak" is lazy Thai (according to my Thai friends). Thais don't like rolling their "R"s anymore than we do so they get lazy and substitute an "L" for it. Drives my partner nuts. But that's how they do it . Narak (cute) is น่ารัก. "Bret" is gonna be tough because Thai doesn't do BR. You can spell it เบร็ท but it might end up being pronounced more like "Berett". "B" is just บ.
      Reply

  20. Martin1 says

    To "Thai names are often quite long (longer is considered more prestigious)": Is it really like that? Did your wife and your Thai friends confirm this point?I am asking because I heard differently: Long time ago it was mandated that every Thai family takes a unique family name. But when later more and more Chinese people came to Siam all the short names were already taken, so that they had to use longer names (also a way now to detect the origins of people living in Thailand: shorter name="real" Thai, longer name=Thai-Chinese).
    Reply

      • Martin1 says

        Hey TTL-Peter!I have asked my Thai wife o this topic. She said when people have the very long names (both given and family), other people will laugh about them, even teachers about pupils in schools. Having the original Thai short names you can find very rich people, and even with long names you can find very poor people. And she said that Thais with Chinese heritage had to put a "sae" in their names plus their former Chinese last name names from Thais with Chinese heritage are always longer then names from the usual Thai families. (The last point was new to me, too - so good that we have spoken about this topic. :-D )
        Reply

        • TheThailandLife says

          Okay. That differs somewhat from what my friends have told me but there are always differing viewpoints. I'll look further into it. The main focus was nicknames anyway, but this is still an interesting topic.
          Reply

  21. James E says

    Great article! After trying many - many - different ways to learn the Thai alphabet I've settled on the TP101 series coupled with consonant and vowel/symbol flashcard decks. While it's not important to write Thai it's really important to be able to read it and the only way to read it is to learn the letters and the only way to learn them is to write them over and over. Very Thai... Even if I can only puzzle out a few letters in a sign I'm usually okay. Nicknames are one of the things where it's important to completely abandon any western preconceptions one might harbor. I know a brother and sister - both named Noi. I know a woman named Muk (ink) because she had dark skin. Her name had to be changed as a child because her brother died and her parents wanted to hide her from the evil spirits. I know three brothers whose parents graced them with the names of different bugs. Collectively they're referred to as "the insects". While cheu-len may seem strange to us think about how weird it is for so many of us to sport names (the same few names) taken from religious texts written thousands of years ago. Not very imaginative.
    Reply

    • TheThailandLife says

      Thanks James. Haha, the insects - that's pretty cool. Similar to the girl you know, I have a friend whose nickname is Apple, but often extended to 'Apple Dum' (dark apple) because she is dark-skinned. My wife told me today she knows of a kid nicknamed 'nong iPad' :).
      Reply

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