About My Name

I've been asked very often about my name, its pronunciation, meaning, etc. You can just go with “Site”, but I think it would be interesting to explain everything about my name.

Chinese Name Introduction

My Chinese name is 柏思特, written in Pinyin as Bai Si Te, and in phonogram /bai,sihˈtə/. Audio here: . 思特(Site) is my given name and 柏(Bai) is my surname, because Chinese put the surname in the front and then the given name, and usually regard them as a whole (When asked about what your name is, people usually refer to your full name).

Chinese Name Meaning and Origination

Unlike other Chinese names, the reason why I got this name actually originates from the English language. To be specific, my mom named me 柏思特 because its Chinese pronunciation /bai,sihˈtə/ sounds very much like the English word "Best", representing that I'll always be the best to her and the wish that I can live the best out of my life. Well, they may not sound similar in your ears, but most mandarin speaking Chinese can get it. And this way of naming a child, though not widely seen, but according to my observation, is becoming more and more common in China, and my mom is definitely not the only one.

About my surname 柏(Bai), its direct English meaning is cypress, a kind of tree. Some say it originates from the names of some Chinese ancients; some say it was the name of a kingdom and its people named themselves after the kingdom; both of these date back to some 3000-5000 years ago. More about my surname can be found in this Wikipedia shared with two other Chinese "Bai" surnames.

Aside from being combined together with 柏(Bai) to sound like the word "Best", 思(Si) and 特(Te) have their own meanings as well. 思(Si) means "to think", and 特(Te) means "special" in Chinese. Together, they carry the wish for me to be able to think in special ways. More...

English Name

I've always struggled with my choice of an English name, but eventually, "Cedar " is my choice. Two reasons: 1) It's the English translation of my Chinese Family name. 2) Most importantly, it's an actual English name.

One candidate, as you can imagine, was "Best", for it's exactly what my Chinese name is about. In fact, I've used "Best" as my English name throughout my English learning process. It carries great memories, and all of my English teachers, and friends from high school English debate teams knew me by this name. But I changed my mind after I travelled to the United States and met genuine Americans. During my summer trip to the U.S. in 2015 and my study at Berkeley, when I made self-introductions, few people realized what I was saying, instead were thinking about some other names that they don't know how to spell. A nice senior couple from Idaho, Keith and Joann Hoyt, who came to our school as foreign language teachers in the summer of 2017 were very kind to call me "Best", and I explained the meanings of my name of course. A Chinese major student from a Christian family in Illinois, Jordan Richert, was also very kind to let me know that "Best" is a uncommon, maybe a little bit strange English name. But I did find out that "Best" is indeed common as a surname. So the combination "Cedar Best" would make a perfect English name. Hope I can change my official English name to this some day in the future.

Another candidate was "Kris". Friends I met during my time at Berkeley would know me by this name. I liked it because it's short, but I realized there are too many "Kris"s, "Chris"s and names with short being "Chris" or "Kris" (I've met a dozen). More...

What You May Call Me

After all this, you must be wondering what you should call me. In fact, you can pick your preference as long as I know it's me, and I'm not the kind of person who's gonna be serious about this. If you already know me, you can keep on with the name you know me of.

If you are an English speaker, you can call my English name "Cedar /ˈsiːdər/". If you are willing to learn the Chinese pronunciation, you can go with "Site /sihˈtə/". You are also welcome to call me "Site /saɪt/", because it's simple and straight forward. In fact, my Chinese friends would jokingly call me "Site /saɪt/" as a nickname, because it's an interesting coincidence that the Pinyin of 思(Si) and 特(Te) form another actual English word. You can also address me by my surname "Bai" which is simple and sounds the same in basically all languages.

If you are a Chinese speaker, my friends normally go with "柏思特" because they thought it's strange to split the name and it would lose the meaning of "Best". But you can go with "思特" as well, because a lot of professors in my undergraduate university call me that, so I'm also used to it. More...