Question regarding Chinese honorifics

[firestar]

I'm looking for two things, really: a) how people would refer to a child that is not their own (google tells me it would be Xiao *name*, but I'd appreciate some confirmation on that) and b) ...okay, b is a bit long-winded. A character I'm writing for has been de-aged back to about 9 years old and doesn't remember anyone, so he's now tacking jie and ge onto everyone's names; however one of the other characters is exclusively called Xiao Qiao and I don't think Xiao Qiao Jie is... something that would work. Her name is Qiao Qian but she's never referred to that way so I'm a bit at a loss how to work this and google is not helping.

Language is Mandarin, not Cantonese, and it's fic for a Taiwanese drama; I'm not sure if there'd be much difference between Taiwan and the Mainland for this, but I'm mentioning it just in case there is.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

[anotherslashfan]

Probably Qiao Jie, but I'll wait for actual Chinese speakers to chime in. May I ask what the source is? *curious*

[graychalk]

For the first question, you can tack on the Xiao, but that's probably more common if the child is already being called that. People don't normally add on Xiao unless 1) they're familiar enough for the term to be used as an endearment, or 2) as mentioned above, the child mainly identifies with being called that way... or was introduced that way to begin with.

For a different way of calling someone without using Xiao, you can also try doubling up one of the characters... for example, Qiao Qiao, instead of Xiao Qiao. That's more like a nickname, I guess.

As for the second question, it would be Qiao Jie instead of Xiao Qiao Jie.

Hope this helps!