以斯拉

The male name Ezra is rendered in Chinese as 以斯拉. These characters are chosen for their sound, not their meaning — together they approximate how Ezra is pronounced. In pinyin (the standard romanization of Mandarin) this reads Yǐ sī lā.

Character-by-character breakdown

In Chinese, Ezra is written with 3 characters, each standing for one syllable of the sound: 以 (Yǐ), 斯 (sī), 拉 (lā). Each character here is a phonetic unit — picked for how it sounds, not for what it means — so read together they echo Ezra rather than spelling out a literal meaning.

Origin & meaning of Ezra

Ezra is a name of Hebrew origin. From the Hebrew Ezra, "help" — the biblical scribe who led Jews home from Babylon and restored the Torah.