Method & Sources
How Plainname selects names, explains meanings, labels historical claims, and handles uncertainty.
The current studio ranks a finite editorial set of given-name combinations deterministically. It considers selected themes, style, a limited sound cue, and surname choice. It does not randomly invent characters or compute a “Chinese authenticity” score. Character senses are paraphrased from dictionary references; the shared character-reading template uses one JSON record per character to show that sense beside contextual examples and limits. Complete-name interpretations are explicitly editorial. Surname profiles cite a specific historical bearer or association but do not infer genealogy. The live interactive result is private and is not made into a crawlable URL. Human feedback remains recommended for every finalist.
Where facts come from
Mandarin pinyin display follows the Chinese personal-name spelling standard and the Library of Congress pinyin guidance. Character-level source links are shown as optional checks in the shared character reader; they do not supply a full personal-name interpretation. Historical claims are linked from surname profiles. A source for one fact is not evidence for unrelated claims about a candidate name.
Current limits
The catalog is finite, not a population registry. The interface does not estimate how many people share a name, does not certify legal use, and does not represent output as native-speaker-approved. The sound cue is a modest ranking aid, not automatic transliteration.