What's Your Chinese Celebrity Nickname?

All stars of sound and screen have nicknames in China. Find out yours with our nickname generator!

By
Beimeng Fu
by Beimeng Fu

BuzzFeed News Reporter

and
Hayes Brown
by Hayes Brown

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Think of a celebrity. Any celebrity. Odds are they're called something entirely different in China, thanks to translations and a love of wordplay. And some of the nicknames the Chinese media and internet gives them are ~amazing~.

Neilson Barnard / Getty Images
Anthony Harvey / Getty Images
Michael Loccisano / Getty Images

For example, Nicki Minaj is known as 麻辣鸡 / Ma La Ji — which literally translates to "Numbing Spicy Chicken." A flubbed interview with a Taiwanese newsperson led to Leonardo DiCaprio being called "Pikachu." And James Franco has the less than appealing nickname of 腐兰兰 / Fu Lan Lan — or "Rotten Orchard."

Here's some of our favorite of those nicknames. Scroll all the way down to figure out what your Chinese celebrity nickname would be!

Fruit Sister (水果姐 / Shui Guo Jie)

John Shearer / AP

This is the widespread nickname Chinese internet gave Katy Perry for her constant love for fruity stage costumes and stage properties. In the past, she's worn watermelon-cup bras, sung with a inflatable giant strawberry, and jumped out of a gigantic banana.

Curly Blessing (卷福 / Juan Fu)

Ian Walton / Getty Images

Benedict Cumberbatch won his Chinese fandom with his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock. "Curly" comes naturally from the curly hairstyle his Holmes wears. And "Blessing" comes from the Chinese translation of Holmes — 福尔摩斯. The first character in the word has its own independent meaning: blessing, 福 / Fu.

Mold Mold (霉霉/ Mei Mei)

China Stringer Network / Reuters

Taylor Swift drew the short straw when it comes to nicknames. Her Chinese fans think that Taylor is very beautiful — but "beautiful" in Chinese is pronounced almost in the same way as the word that means "moldy" or "unlucky." Both are "mei," just with different intonations.

The "unlucky" has an extra meaning, as "every time Taylor has debuted a strong single aiming at crowning the Billboard Top 100 ranking, she bumped into different 'evildoers' and have to be stopped as a runner-up."

Boss Jia (贾老板/ Jia Lao Ban)

Buda Mendes / Getty Images

"Boss Jia" refers to Justin Timberlake. Jia is the first initial of Justin's Chinese-translated name and also coincidently is a common Chinese family name. Chinese fans bow to Justin not just for the whole music thing, but also his reputation as an investor and entrepreneur. From tech, to golf training, to record companies, there's just no industry Boss won't touch.

Dick (丁日/ Ding Ri)

Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images

Sorry, Beliebers: Justin's nickname is kind of the worst and yet kind of fitting.

The initials of his name, JB, share the initials of the Chinese slang for dick, "鸡巴/ Ji Ba". But it's too rude to call him that directly, right? So Chinese people came up with this alternate etymology: the initial "J" looks like "丁" the Chinese character (meaning "a member of a family") and the initial "B" looks exactly like "日" the Chinese character (meaning "sun" and in slang, well, "fuck").

So how perfect "丁日" substitutes in for "JB" in "丁unstin 日ieber"! (...And dick.)

So what's yours? Find out here!

Skip to footer