路易

The male name Louis is rendered in Chinese as 路易. These characters are chosen for their sound, not their meaning — together they approximate how Louis is pronounced. In pinyin (the standard romanization of Mandarin) this reads Lù yì.

Character-by-character breakdown

In Chinese, Louis is written with 2 characters, each standing for one syllable of the sound: 路 (Lù), 易 (yì). Each character here is a phonetic unit — picked for how it sounds, not for what it means — so read together they echo Louis rather than spelling out a literal meaning.

Origin & meaning of Louis

Louis is a name of Germanic origin. A French form of Ludwig, from the Germanic hludwig (fame) and wig (war): "renowned warrior."