# Hanyu Pinyin Converter: Chinese Characters and Names to Pinyin

Convert Chinese characters to Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks, tone numbers or no tones, and write a Chinese name the way it appears on Singapore documents.

Interactive tool: https://lookup.sg/tools/hanyu-pinyin-converter

## How this works
Hanyu Pinyin is the standard romanisation of Mandarin, taught in Singapore schools. Each character is one syllable, and a tone mark shows its pitch: first (ā, level), second (á, rising), third (ǎ, dipping), fourth (à, falling), or no mark for the neutral tone. Tone numbers write the same tones as digits (ma1 to ma4).

The converter reads simplified and traditional characters with the open-source pinyin-pro dictionary and picks the reading of characters with more than one pronunciation from the surrounding word, so 银行 is yín háng but 行走 is xíng zǒu.

In name mode, the surname comes first and uses its surname reading (曾 is Zeng, not Ceng; 单 is Shan), two-character surnames such as 欧阳 are kept together, and each syllable of the given name is capitalised and spaced, as on Singapore documents: 陈伟明 becomes Chen Wei Ming. A Singapore name is often in a dialect romanisation such as Tan, Lim or Ng, and parents can add an optional Hanyu Pinyin name in brackets, which must come with the matching Chinese characters: ICA's example is Isaac Tan (Chen Xiao Ming) 陈小明. About 13% of Singapore citizens had a Hanyu Pinyin name registered as of February 2026.

## FAQs
### How do I write my Chinese name in Hanyu Pinyin?
Surname first, then the given name, with no tone marks: 陈伟明 is Chen Wei Ming in the common Singapore style, or Chen Weiming in the China style, where the given name is one word.

### Why is my surname Tan and not Chen?
Because it was registered in a dialect romanisation. 陈 is Chen in Hanyu Pinyin but is usually spelled Tan from Hokkien or Teochew, or Chan from Cantonese. Dialect surnames are often combined with a Hanyu Pinyin given name, as in Tan Wei Ming.

### What are the four tones in pinyin?
First tone ā is high and level, second tone á rises, third tone ǎ dips then rises, and fourth tone à falls sharply. A syllable with no mark is the neutral tone, as in the second 妈 of 妈妈 (mā ma).

### How do I type ü without the special character?
Most keyboards and forms use v or u in place of ü, so 吕 (lǚ) is typed lv or written Lu. After j, q, x and y, ü is always written as u, as in ju and xue.

## Sources
- [pinyin-pro (MIT licence), the dictionary behind the conversion](https://github.com/zh-lx/pinyin-pro)
- [ICA: Birth certificate (ethnic and Hanyu Pinyin names)](https://www.ica.gov.sg/documents/birth-certificate)
- [MHA: Singapore citizens with an additional Hanyu Pinyin name](https://www.mha.gov.sg/media-room/newsroom/singapore-citizens-with-additional-hanyu-pinyin-name-registered-as-part-of-legal-name/)

---
Source: Lookup (https://lookup.sg) · Data as of October 2026 · Listings compiled from Singapore government open data (data.gov.sg), OneMap and Overture Maps places. Free listings never show contact details; contact details appear only on Lookup Verified listings.