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*

[firestar]

Thank you. :) I was wondering if it would be that but my Mandarin is non-existent so the odds of being completely wrong are hiiiigh. XD Source is KO 3an Guo, which is a high school spoof of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

[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!

[firestar]

It does, thank you very much. :)

[graychalk]

You're welcome! :)

I don't know anything about the source of your fic, but I would, in general, be careful about tacking on Xiao onto just any child by just anyone. I know tons of Taiwanese children, and I can only think of two where I call them Xiao-something and that's only because practically everyone calls them that... and the two children happen to be my cousin's children. Outside of that, I've only ever referred to someone as Xiao-something when I was introduced to them that way.

And I forgot to add earlier:

For children, you could also call them Di Di (for boy) and Mei Mei (for girl) too, and this is okay for children you don't know well also.

[firestar]

Okay, I'll keep that in mind, thank you. :) As his regular self his friends just use his given name, so I'm not entirely sure they'll be using any other diminutives for him now (at least, not his closest ones, others might? I don't know. I just wanted to know what to use, just in case. Possibly I am making this way too complicated for myself. >.>) because they're working on the assumption that they'll get him back to normal one way or another.

[graychalk]

If it's the character that got de-aged (I wasn't sure if you were referring to the same person on your original post :P), I can picture close friends using Xiao almost as an awkward I-don't-know-how-to-handle-this-younger-version thing. Or as a way to placate or calm the child down if they suddenly find themselves in a situation where the child cries or throws a tantrum.

Or as an inside joke... where Xiao-name is used to refer to the de-aged version while Da-name is when they need to talk about the character before he got de-aged. :P

If the character was someone who was not very "Xiao" anything at all back in his normal state (serious, huge build, manly man, etc.), then using Xiao could potentially come with giggles among close friends.

Okay, sorry, I probably gave you waaaay more than you wanted to know. I'll shut up now. >_>

[firestar]

Heh, no worries, it wasn't all that clear. <3 And I will happily take all the information I can get: if it's not useful atm it might be later. :) And the guy in question is... possibly a pretty 'Xiao' type person, actually. He's generally always cheerful, naive and kind of an airhead at times.