Can Ti Dao be a Chinese name?

No, it can’t. I mean, although some might argue that Ti could be seen as Wade-Giles version of a Chinese surname 狄, then how do we see Dao, since there are not Chinese characters which could be spelled as Dao in the Wade-Giles romanization? So, Ti Dao looks like a Pinyin version of two Chinese characters. And among Chinese surnames whose capital letter is T, there is not a Chinese surname could be spelled in Pinyin as Ti.

So, if we want Ti Dao to look more like a romanization of a Chinese name, then we could choose to replace Ti with Tian, which could refer to a more commonly seen Chinese surname 田, which could mean field and farm. There are other people whose surname is 田, for instance, Tian Xiwei, or 田曦薇 in Chinese, an actress from mainland China and Tian Xiaojie, or 田小洁 in Chinese, an actor from mainland China.

Here is a picture of Tian Xiwei.

Here is a picture of Tian Xiaojie.

Speaking of Dao, which could be written in different Chinese characters, for instance, 道, which could mean way and road, and 岛, which could mean island. But in my humble opinion, 田道 and 田岛 don’t sound very natural to ears of native speakers of the Chinese language.

Therefore, I suggest you replace Dao with Tao. Tao could refer to multiple Chinese characters, for example, 涛, which mean big wave. And 涛 could be used as a unisex given name, such as, Zhou Tao, or 周涛 in Chinese, a TV host from mainland China and Ning Zetao, or 宁泽涛 in Chinese, a former professional swimmer.

Here is a picture of Zhou Tao.

Here is a picture of Ning Zetao.

So, you see, Tian Tao looks more like a Chinese name and could indeed be written as a Chinese name, i.e., 田涛.

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