The Story of My Chinese Name

My name is "陶旭". "陶"means pottery; "旭" means the rising sun at dawn. To tell you the truth, my name is not thought of by my parents, it was named by my grandpa by mistake.

I have a brother, who is two years older than me. When he was born, my farther had thougt a pair of names already: "陶治" and "陶冶". You could think it looks like the same at first sight. Pay attention to "治" and "冶". "治" means management; "冶" means to smelt, and "陶冶" is a ready made word which means to exert a favourable influence (on a person's character，etc.) I think it's a good idea but before my mother give birth to me, she just disagree with the idea. She think "冶" sounds like "野" which means rude or wild. At last, my mother give my brother and I names: "陶明辉" and "陶明锐". You can tell that there is only a difference at the last chatacter. The first name "陶" is just like "Cook" of "David Cook", it comes from your father's name. The middle name "明" is to show your position in the family hierarchy, and it's not compulsory,cause you can see many two-character name. The last name "锐" is just like "David" of "David cook".

My brother's name is "陶明辉"，which is used till now. However my name isn't "陶明锐", my grandpa mistooke it. It happened at the day of registered permanent residence for my cousin and I. He was so drunk that exchange my last name with my cousin's...Thank goodness! My new name sounds not really bad, so my parents had to just receive it. Isn't it very dramatic?