英 yīng — what the character means in a Chinese name

What 英 means in a Chinese nameyīng

15,979 real names in the 1.14M-name corpus♂ 1,675 · ♀ 14,3049 strokesdata & verification

tier B

花；引申为精华、才智出众。

A flower — and then the finest part of anything, and so outstanding ability.

1 处原典 · 1 部典籍 · 全部可核

颜如舜英 The oldest use of the word

有女同行，颜如舜英。

A girl rides along; her face is like a hibiscus flower.

诗经 · 有女同车 · our translation

英 means flower first; "outstanding talent" is a later extension from "the essence of the flower". 「英」的本义就是花，这里直接写脸像花。后来「英才」的「英」，是从「花之精」引申出来的。

英才英华英华英秀俊英英杰

In a name

Flower first, talent second.

「英」先是花，才是才。

1 sourced citation · every line verified character-for-character against a versioned corpus — read or verify the dataset