@DoubleU You might be able to shed more light on this question: literature.stackexchange.com/q/6466/17

(pinging because it's old and not tagged chinese-literature, so you might not see it otherwise)

@Randal'Thor I wouldn't read too much into it. You may want to look into Asian stereotypes: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

I looked up Keck Kiong Te. The name is discussed on Quora and SE. On Quora, the person suggests it is a valid Chinese name and links to a Facebook page. The problem is, Chinese people may choose bizarre first names in combination with an unstandardized romanization of the Chinese name.

A romanization is not a Chinese name. A romanization can refer to several different Chinese characters, but just by knowing the romanization, it is impossible to know the exact characters, especially if the romanization is unstandardized and individual.

Sometimes, English authors would include ethnic Chinese characters for the sake of diversity, as in the case of JK Rowling's Cho Chang. The author is probably thinking, "I want a diversify my cast. So, I am going to choose Cho Chang. It's Asian-sounding enough."

One big problem that I find is that non-Chinese people assume the romanization of a current Chinese name is the original pronunciation, and they put extremely heavy emphasis on pronunciation over writing, to the point that they will say that every single Chinese pronunciation is part of an unique language. That's never how the Chinese people view the language, though.

In actuality, Chinese people will place heavy emphasis on writing, and the varied pronunciations are trivial. "You say it this way; I say it that. We are referring to the same character."

李 may be romanized as Li. 刘 may be romanized as Liu. 王 may be romanized as Wang. 汪 may be romanized as Wang.

The Chinese language in all varieties and dialects is monosyllabic. So, a non-Chinese person just has to create a mono-syllabic name, like Hum-Drum and Kopy-Keck. In some varieties, the stop consonants are preserved from Middle Chinese, but it is unlikely that any name will sound bi-syllabic like "Kopy".

Hello, I have a question about a book from Sci-Fi that I think might get an answer here:

(Not my question, but I wanna know what it is [sounds like a good book and is very detailed compared to many story-IDs])

@Randal'Thor Were one of the answers deleted? I thought I saw two...

@Randal'Thor That's just English literature with Chinese stereotypes. Not surprising, if you consider that the book is written in the 19th century. BTW, I loved MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie.

@Fabjaja Yes, the OP switched acceptance after andejons posted a second answer, and then Gareth Rees deleted his answer.

@Stormblessed Unfortunately, I think most of Lit's story-ID experts are a) not chat regulars and b) also on SFF.