Hong Le still remembers meeting a charismatic woman campaigning for San Francisco district attorney in 2003. In Cantonese, that woman’s name was 賀錦麗, which is pronounced Ho Gam-lai and means “Congratulate Brocade Beautiful.”
乐洪（音）还记得2003年在旧金山地方检察官竞选活动中遇到的一位魅力四射的女参选人。这位女士的粤语名字是贺锦丽，读作Ho Gam-lai，意思是“祝贺美丽的锦绣”。

Most Americans know her by another name: Kamala Harris.
大多数美国人都知道她的另一个名字：卡玛拉·哈里斯。

“She’s the vice president right now,” Mr. Le, 88, said in Cantonese. “And she deserves it.”
“她现在是副总统，”88岁的乐洪用粤语说。“她当之无愧。”

In San Francisco, where more than a fifth of residents are of Chinese descent, politicians have long taken a second name in Chinese characters. And any serious candidate knows to order campaign materials in English and in Chinese.
在旧金山，超过五分之一的居民是华裔，政界人士向来会给自己另外取一个汉字名。认真对待的候选人都知道竞选材料要做成中英双语。

But the city’s leniency for adopted names has frustrated some Chinese American candidates, who say that non-Chinese rivals have gone overboard by using flattering, flowery phrases that at first glance have little to do with their actual names. Some candidates have gained an advantage or engaged in cultural appropriation, the critics say.
但该市对别名的宽容让一些华裔美国候选人感到不满，他们说，非华裔竞争对手过分使用美化、花俏的字眼作为名字，乍看上去与他们的本名几乎没有关系。批评者说，一些候选人从中获得了优势，或者是在搞文化挪用。

No more. For the first time, San Francisco has rejected Chinese names submitted by 22 candidates, in most cases because they could not prove they had used the names for at least two years. The city has asked translators to furnish names that are transliterated, a process that more closely approximates English pronunciations.
今后不会这样了。旧金山首次拒绝了22名候选人提交的中文名，大多数情况下是因为他们无法证明自己使用过这些名字至少两年。该市请翻译员给出了更接近英语发音的音译名。

That means Michael Isaku Begert, who is running to keep his local judgeship, cannot use 米高義, which means in part “high” and “justice,” a name that suggests he was destined to sit on the bench.
这意味着正在竞选连任地方法官的迈克尔·伊萨库·贝格尔特不能再使用“米高义”——含有“高”和“正义”的意思，暗示他注定要坐上法官宝座。

And Daniel Lurie, who is challenging Mayor London Breed, must scrap the name he had been campaigning with for months: 羅瑞德, which means “auspicious” and “virtue.” Mr. Lurie’s new name, 丹尼爾·羅偉, pronounced Daan-nei-ji Lo-wai, is a transliterated version that uses characters closer to the sound of his name in English but are meaningless when strung together.
而挑战旧金山市市长伦敦·布里德的丹尼尔·卢里必须放弃他几个月来一直在竞选中使用的“罗瑞德”——意思是“祥瑞”和“美德”。卢里的新名字“丹尼尔·罗伟”是音译，使用的字更接近英文名的发音，但是组合在一起就没有意义了。

Most Chinese names feature two to three characters — a surname, and a one- or two-character given name. In the Chinese-speaking world, choosing a baby’s name can carry so much weight that some parents still consult fortune tellers who consider factors like the exact time of birth and the number of brush strokes in a character to suggest an auspicious moniker imbued with meaning.
大多数中国人的名字都由两三个字组成——一个姓，以及一两个字的名。在中文世界里，给孩子取名字非常重要，以至于一些父母仍然会咨询算命先生，他们会考虑婴儿出生的确切时间，以及汉字的笔画数目等因素，给孩子取一个充满寓意的吉祥名字。

The federal Voting Rights Act requires that jurisdictions with a significant number of voters who aren’t fluent in English — like the large Cantonese-speaking population in San Francisco — provide translated ballots and voter materials. The act, however, leaves it up to local election officials to decide whether that includes candidates’ names.
联邦《投票权法案》要求，有大量英语不流利选民的司法管辖区——比如旧金山有大量讲粤语的人口——必须提供翻译好的选票和选民材料。然而，该法案规定，由地方选举官员决定这是否包括候选人的姓名。

Certain towns in Alaska must translate ballots into Yup’ik, an Indigenous Alaskan language, while some counties in Arizona must do so in Navajo and Apache. Hundreds of jurisdictions around the nation must translate their ballots into Spanish, while 19 must print them in Chinese, 12 in Vietnamese and four in Korean.
阿拉斯加州的某些城镇必须将选票翻译成阿拉斯加原住民语言尤皮克语，而亚利桑那州的一些县必须将选票翻译成纳瓦霍语和阿帕奇语。全国有数百个选区必须将选票翻译成西班牙文，19个选区必须翻译成中文，12个选区必须翻译成越南文，四个选区必须翻译成韩文。

San Francisco has mandated since 1999 that candidates’ names appear in both English and Chinese. But now, in adherence to a 2019 state law, it is requiring transliteration for new candidates while allowing those who can prove they have used a Chinese name for at least two years to keep using it. (The law also applies to ballots printed in other character-based languages, such as Japanese and Korean.)
自1999年以来，旧金山规定，候选人的名字必须使用中英双语。但现在，根据2019年的一项州法律，它要求新的候选人必须使用音译名字，同时允许那些能够证明自己使用中文姓名至少两年的候选人继续使用这个姓名（该法律也适用于以其他字符为基础的语言印制的选票，如日文和韩文）。

The switch isn’t universally popular. It ends a San Francisco tradition, cherished in some circles, in which Chinese leaders have bestowed names upon their favorite candidates. And it has the potential of resulting in long monikers that are difficult to remember or even cringe-worthy, since the characters that sound like someone’s name may translate into odd phrases in Chinese.
并非所有人都欢迎这一改变。它结束了旧金山的一个传统——华人社区领袖会给他们青睐的候选人起中文名字，这一传统在某些圈子里备受珍视。而且，这个转变有可能导致名字太长，难以记住，甚至令人尴尬，因为音译名字的字符可能会在中文中构成奇怪的意思。

Fiona Ma, the California state treasurer, backed the legislative effort in 2019 after inconsistent policies had resulted in her Chinese name being changed without her knowledge.
加州财务长菲奥娜·马在2019年支持了这项立法，此前，不一致的政策导致她的中文名字在她不知情的情况下被更改。

Ms. Ma, the daughter of immigrants from China, had used her given Chinese name — 馬世雲, meaning “Horse Worldly Cloud” — on the ballot since the early 2000s, when she first ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She said she had always taken pride in her name, and the Chinese-language media had long referred to her by it. But Ms. Ma learned that her name had been changed to a transliteration on the June 2018 ballot.
菲奥娜·马是中国移民的女儿，自21世纪初第一次竞选旧金山参事委员会成员以来，她一直在投票中使用自己的中文名字马世云，意思是“马，世间的云”。她说，她一直以自己的名字为傲，中文媒体也一直用这个名字称呼她。但她得知，在2018年6月的选票上，她的名字被改成了音译。

The legislation that Ms. Ma sponsored set new ground rules. She wanted to ensure that candidates with a legitimate claim to a Chinese name could use them, but also that others not gain an unfair advantage by making up flattering names.
马世云发起的这项立法制定了新的基本规则。她希望确保对中文姓名有正当要求的候选人可以使用这些姓名，但也想确保其他人不会因为编造好听的名字而获得不公平的优势。

“If it’s a good name, like ‘Most Amazing Trustworthy Person’ or ‘Pro Public Safety,’ then it could make a difference,” Ms. Ma said.
“如果那是一个好名字，比如‘最值得信赖的人’或‘公共安全专家’，那么它可能会造成影响，”马世云说。

At a recreation center in San Francisco’s Richmond District, some voters said that a candidate’s name has less impact on whom they choose than what one has done. Mr. Le said between games of ping pong that it mattered more to him whether candidates addressed the needs of the Chinese community.
在旧金山里士满区的一个娱乐中心，一些选民说，比起名字，还是候选人的作为更能影响他们的选择。乐洪在打乒乓球的间隙说，对他来讲，候选人是否能满足华人社区的需求更重要。

“If you care, we’ll know your name,” he said.
“如果你关心我们，我们就会知道你的名字，”他说。

Jen Nossokoff, a first-time candidate running for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee in March and for the Board of Supervisors in November, said she received a name, 高素貞, from a Chinese supporter last summer. The name is pronounced Gou Sou-zing in Cantonese, and calls to mind a well-known Chinese folk character who is regarded as a symbol of kindheartedness.
珍·诺索科夫今年3月首次竞选旧金山民主党县中央委员会，11月竞选参事委员会。她说，去年夏天，她从一位中国支持者那里得到了一个名字“高素贞”。这个名字粤语读作“Gou Sou-zing”，让人想起一个著名的中国民间神话人物，认为是心地善良的象征。

“It means integrity,” she said. “It means ambition.”
“它意味着正直，”她说。“它意味着雄心。”

She printed the name on her campaign signs, many of which hang in the windows of her neighbors’ homes.
她把自己的名字印在竞选标语上，其中很多标语挂在邻里的窗户上。

But the name was rejected by the Department of Elections, which recently assigned her a transliterated name, 珍·諾索科夫, or Zan Nok-sok-fo-fu in Cantonese — a hodgepodge moniker that has none of the lofty symbolism of her desired name.
但这个名字被选举管理局的否决，该机构最近给她取了一个音译的名字——珍·诺索科夫，粤语读作“Zan Nok-sok-fo-fu”——一个东拼西凑的别名，没有她想要的那个名字里那种崇高的象征意义。

Voters are now casting their ballots for the March 5 election, and Ms. Nossokoff said it’s confusing that the name on her campaign literature doesn’t match the one on the ballot. She said the mandated name change was unfair because her opponent in the supervisor’s race, the incumbent Connie Chan, is the one who notified the Department of Elections that it was violating state law.
选民们正在为3月5日的选举投票，诺索科夫说，她的竞选资料上的名字与选票上的名字不符，这令人困惑。她说，强制改名是不公平的，因为她在参事委员会竞选中的对手、现任参事的康妮·陈(Connie Chan)，就是那个向选举管理局举报她改名违反州法律的人。

Ms. Chan, 45, a native of Hong Kong, moved to San Francisco’s Chinatown with her mother and younger brother when she was 13. Her given name was Szeman, but she quickly changed it after arriving in the United States because, she said, it “sounds like semen.”
45岁的康妮·陈是香港人，13岁时随母亲和弟弟搬到了旧金山的唐人街。她的名字是陈诗敏，但到了美国后她很快就改了名字，因为她说，诗敏“听起来像semen”（意为“精液”。——译注）。

Instead, she joined legions of other Chinese girls her age and officially changed her name to honor Connie Chung, the trailblazing news anchor.
她加入了许多同龄华裔女孩的行列，正式改名为康妮，向开拓性的新闻主播宗毓华(Connie Chung)致敬。

Ms. Chan, knowing the state had passed the 2019 law, wrote a letter of inquiry last fall to the city’s Department of Elections. It’s still unclear why the city wasn’t abiding by state law — the elections chief John Arntz said he didn’t know — and the Board of Supervisors unanimously directed Mr. Arntz’s department to comply. 去年秋天，康妮·陈得知该州已经通过了那部2019年法案，就给该市的选举管理局写了一封问询信。目前尚不清楚该市为何不遵守这项州法律——选举负责人约翰·阿恩茨说自己不知道——参事委员会全票表决要求阿恩茨的部门遵守该法律。

Mr. Arntz said that candidates can use a birth certificate or even a wedding invitation to prove they have a legitimate claim to a Chinese name. Otherwise, the city will provide their transliterated names.
阿恩茨说，候选人可以使用出生证明甚至是婚礼请柬来证明他们对一个中文名字有正当诉求。否则，市政府将提供他们的音译名字。

“I feel strongly that our Chinese names are not a trend,” Ms. Chan said. “It indicates a relationship with the community that I’m not sure they’ve worked hard to build. It’s cultural appropriation.”
“我坚定地认为，我们的中文名字不是一种时尚潮流，”康妮·陈说。“而是与社区的联系的表现，我不确定那些人是否努力建立了这种联系。这是文化挪用。”

Ms. Chan has bestowed Chinese names on white colleagues in the past. When Supervisor Matt Dorsey was the spokesman for the city attorney in 2016, he wanted a Chinese name that could appear consistently in the Chinese press rather than having reporters come up with different translated versions in different outlets.
康妮·陈过去曾给白人同事起过中文名字。2016年，当市检察官马特·多尔西担任该市检察官发言人时，他想要一个能够在中文媒体上保持一致的中文名字，而不是让记者在不同的媒体上使用不同的翻译版本。

Ms. Chan, then a City Hall aide herself, thought he had demonstrated his commitment to the Chinese community through his years of public service. She gave him a name that sounded similar to Matt Dorsey and had a pleasant meaning.
当时担任市政厅助理的康妮·陈认为，他多年的公共服务证明了他对华人社区的承诺。她给他起了一个名字，发音和马特·多尔西接近，还有可爱的寓意。

Well, sort of.
可以这么说吧。

He’s now known in the Chinese community as 麥德誠: “Kind Barley.”
他现在在华人社区被称为麦德诚——“道德诚实的大麦”。

Zhe Wu为本文提供粤语口译。

Heither Knight是一名驻旧金山记者，领导时报对湾区和北加州的报道。点击查看更多关于她的信息。

Amy Qin为时报撰写亚裔美国人社群新闻。点击查看更多关于她的信息。

翻译：晋其角