Chinese Nicknames for NBA Players

[Pennebaker]

Giannis Antetokounmpo - 字母哥 "Letters Bro"

That's great. I'm referring to him as Letters from now on.

[G R E Y]

Zaza - "dregs of the earth." Sounds about right.

[JRoy]

Pickled Chili Pepper

[spanishninja]

lol Standing around Mamba kills me

Sent from my SM-G781U using RealGM Forums mobile app

[TinmanZBoy]

Pickled Chili Pepper

That is Paul George

[no dice]

I saw the news header in Hong Kong about the Raptors signing Otto Porter Jr. They directly referred him as 張伯倫 which is the Chinese translation of Chamberlain lol

[dk1115]

I already find it funny when my chinese friends talk about Steph Curry. The chinese word for Curry sounds basically the same as it does in english.

[scrabbarista]

Great thread. Many of these nicknames are much funnier in English than in Chinese.

Think of the language hoops potentially being run through here:

Antetokounmpo's name is an Englishicized version of a Greekified version of a Nigerian name (don't know if it goes further back than that). Then that Englishicized version is turned into a Chinezed version, which is then turned into a pun, which is then translated back to English. You get the idea.

Anyway, I lived in TW and CH for six and a half years. I had a local basketball buddy who told me Paul Pierce's nickname was "Penis Skin," because his transliteration (sounds like "Bow Pee") sounded the same as "penis skin." As to whether this name suits Pierce... no comment. That was in Taiwan, so I don't know whether it reached China or not.

Here's a Twitter link I found about Pierce's nickname. Note how I actually changed it from "The Foreskin" to "Penis Skin," showing another layer in this kind of linguistic telephone game:

Read on Twitter

?lang=en

[scrabbarista]

Also, this came up in a google search:

"Adrian Wojnarowski is called "Fertility God" (沃神) for his incredible fecundity in breaking NBA scoops. This is a pun, because the character for fertility (沃), pronounced "wò," is used as the first character in the Chinese transliteration of "Wojnarowski.""

[Mephariel]

Also, this came up in a google search:

"Adrian Wojnarowski is called "Fertility God" (沃神) for his incredible fecundity in breaking NBA scoops. This is a pun, because the character for fertility (沃), pronounced "wò," is used as the first character in the Chinese transliteration of "Wojnarowski.""

LOL. Sounds like a cold war spy moniker.