FanPost

Chinese Nicknames for NBA Stars

There was a twitter thread yesterday listing out Chinese nicknames for current and past NBA stars.

">May 7, 2018

I remember having a conversation on FTS and you guys are really into these nicknames. The guy who did this thread did a pretty good job of explaining the origins. As a native speaker I mostly agree though I think there are a few that I don’t agree with and a few more that I know of:

1. Lebron haters rarely use "Little Emperor" to demean him. In most cases, they use 你詹(Your James). This "your"+player name combination is the most common way of refering to a player or team one dislikes.

2. For Steph Curry, 萌神 should be translated as God of Cuteness for his babyface. 萌 is a word from Japanese culture (mo-e) and means cute.

3. Kawhi is 可爱(cute) because Kawhi sounds like Ka-wa-ii in japanese which also mean cute.

4. We call Paul Pierce 包皮(The Foreskin) because his name translated phonetically is Baoluo Piersi. Taking the first two syllables and you get baopi(foreskin)

5. In similar regard, Paul George is 泡椒(Pickled Pepper) or 泡脚(Washing/soaking your feet)

6. We used to call Kyrie 太子(the Prince who will succeed the throne) for obvious reasons. Now he’s just boring Uncle Drew.

7. We used to call Isiah Thomas (the current one) The GOAT of 175 (because he’s actual height is about 175cm, which is also about average for Chinese men). Now he’s just 175.

8. Ben Simmons is nicknamed 席梦思(The Mattress) because his phonetic translation 西蒙斯 sounds like an old word for mattress in Chinese

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