Calling People Names - In Different Languages

When I first learnt how to say "What is your name?" in Mandarin, I was misled.

"你 叫 什么？" ("nǐ jiào shénme?") and "你 叫 什么 名字？" ("nǐ jiào shénme míngzì?") are both rendered by Google Translate as "What's your name?", but that's not strictly correct.

你 叫 什么？ nǐ jiào shénme? actually means "What are you called?", literally "You (are) called what?"

And 你 叫 什么 名字？ nǐ jiào shénme míngzì? means "What name are you called?", literally "You (are) called what name?"

Neither of them is literally "What is your name?"

That would be 你 的 名字 是 什么？nǐ de míngzì shì shénme? (Literally, "you's name is what?")

This doesn't seem to be a commonly used form, although Google Translate helpfully renders this too as "What's your name?". I realise now that loose translations don't help when one is trying to understand a language closely.

[叫 jiào means "call". And that's why you can say 叫我 以实玛利 jiào wǒ yǐ shí mǎ lì ("Call me Ishmael").]

This made me think. I know a few languages where this question is literally posed as "What is your name?", and a few others where the standard form is "What are you called?"

The words marked in blue mean "name".

English: What is your name?

Hindi: तुम्हारा नाम क्या है ? tumhaara naam kya hai ? (literally "Your name what is?")

Tamil: உன் பெயர் என்ன? un peyar enna? (literally "Your name what?")

Kannada: ನಿನ್ನ ಹೆಸರು ಏನು ? ninna hesaru Enu? (literally "Your name what?")

Japanese: 名前 は なん です か? namae wa nan' desu ka? (literally "Name what is (question particle)")

[Notice that the ideographs for "name" are similar in Chinese (名字 míngzì) and Japanese (名前 namae), even though the pronunciations are vastly different.

In fact, on examining the Japanese ideograph more closely, it corresponds to 名前 míngqián in Mandarin, and literally means "name before", probably "forename". Of course, that particular word combination doesn't seem to translate to anything meaningful in Chinese, but it's interesting.]

And in these, the words marked in red mean "called":

Mandarin: 你 叫 什么？ nǐ jiào shénme? (literally "You (are) called what?")

German: Wie heißt du? (literally "How called you?")

French: Comment t'appelles tu? (literally "How called you?")

Russian: как тебя зовут? kak tebya zovut? (literally "How you called?")

This is fascinating. It seems possible to classify languages into two groups depending on how a simple introductory question is phrased. Is this a "name" language or a "called" language?

[It reminds me of the way languages are grouped depending on their word for "tea". Does their word begin with the "t" sound or the "ch" sound? Those countries or regions that use the "t" sound for tea first got their tea by the sea route. Those that use the "ch" sound for tea first got it by the land route. English, French, German, and Tamil all use the "t" sound for tea. Russian, Arabic and Hindi use the "ch" sound.]