特蕾莎

The female name Teresa is rendered in Chinese as 特蕾莎. These characters are chosen for their sound, not their meaning — together they approximate how Teresa is pronounced. In pinyin (the standard romanization of Mandarin) this reads Tè lěi shā.

Character-by-character breakdown

In Chinese, Teresa is written with 3 characters, each standing for one syllable of the sound: 特 (Tè), 蕾 (lěi), 莎 (shā). Each character here is a phonetic unit — picked for how it sounds, not for what it means — so read together they echo Teresa rather than spelling out a literal meaning.

Origin & meaning of Teresa

Teresa is a name of Greek origin. Of uncertain origin, possibly "harvester" — borne by Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint Teresa of Calcutta.