Howe, for a boy?

[aletterfromseneca]

Yes, I know it is much more common as a surname. It's the only one we like the sound of in both family's languages (English and Chinese). We've fallen in love with it, but have got cold feet and worry that it is blinding us.

It’s a surname. My old fuddy-duddy history teacher was Mr Howe. Not good!

Trying to think of Chinese names I like that would work in English.
Kai would work.
Tai
Tao
Liwei
Lan
Jin
Jiahao
Min
Bowen

Glad that you’ve had a rethink OP. I don’t think it works well in English unfortunately.

I actually quite like it especially spelt Hao

Hao (given name) - Wikipedia

Are you sure it’s Surrender and not Surinder?

OP I quite like Hao, with that spelling - will that work?

But can you not give them an English first name and Chinese middle name, the Chinese ILs can call the child by their middle name? I went to school with lots of girls from Hong Kong and this was the norm for them.

There’s a Howe Street where I live. Doesn’t sound odd to me - it’s a name.

Is your surname Chinese? If so, How could work as people will just assume it's Chinese so they wont be "expecting" an English name.

eg my friend's name is Ping. If she was English people would think it was a bit odd but because she's Chinese it's fine.

Is your family name 'wai'?
Why? How?

Howzat. No.

Howie is better surely? How is a very well used word in daily vocabulary (even more so in Scotland where it’s also substituted in place ‘why’).

Alternatively as pp has said Hao which would have a slightly different pronunciation in English

I still think adding another character to Hao to make a two character given name would work well and OP would get to keep the Hao. Like Haoran, Haoyu, Jiahao.

They wouldn't be pronounced exactly right but i don't think you will ever get that completely, you are crossing oceans literally and linguistically between countries and languages. Could have the nickname Howie in England if they like it.

AI suggested

Leo (力欧): Sounds exactly like the English name Leo. It translates to "power" or "bravery."

Don (东): Sounds like the English name Don. It translates to "east."

Evan (以凡): A popular phonetic match for the English name Evan.

I think Howe will just sound like How.

Leo (力欧) is Li Ou, it does sound quite like Leo, to me it looks like a Chinese version of a Western name (like Dawei being David kind of thing), I'm not Chinese though, maybe it is more Chinese than I think!

Don (东) - this is not Don, AI has this wrong, it's Dong. I don't think Dong works well in English.

Evan (以凡) - this is Yi Fan, it's nice but sounds quite different to Evan to me, more like Ee fan.

@Italiangreyhound , I think that the child will be half-Chinese and people are a lot more open minded about names.

A name like Hao would not be ridiculed, or it certainly shouldn't be.

I have a wasian child.. we did English first babe and Chinese middle name…

and yeah I agree, Howe sounds like a question and a know two people with the surname and so it looks strange as a first

NamingNoNames

Of course it should not be ridiculed, but it sounds like a question and I think it would be confusing.

Both my children have names I would consider to be quite regular and for both I had to tell people how to spell and pronounce them and still people get them wrong!

First name: Howe
Middle name: Day.

I like it and it’s different.

Excellentsausages

well spotted, yes dong doesn't sound like Don.

I did study Mandarin many years ago so should have realised it was Dong not Don!

But i did rely on AI!

When I visited China (many, many years ago) I used a Chinese version of my name, to sound like my name, not it's meaning.

Howie?

Errrr, no! That's a terrible first name! 😬

Howie maybe, or Howard (I wouldn't use them myself,) but they're better than HOWE!

I think only of the inventive (and probably slightly mean) nicknames that will come into play as well as a lifetime of repeating his name and the awful puns he will hear over and over again.
There are thousands of other choices, please use one of those