Free Chinese Tool
Type your Chinese name below and watch every character written stroke by stroke. Each character shows its animation, pinyin and stroke count, plus a quiz mode that lets you draw the strokes yourself and a printable practice sheet with rice grids. It is the classic way Chinese schoolchildren learn to write, applied to your own name.
No Chinese knowledge needed: watch, trace, then write. If you do not have a Chinese name yet, translate your English name or create one with the generator first.
Only Chinese characters are shown; spaces and Latin letters are skipped. Each card animates independently.
Your name, character by character
↻ replay · ? quiz modeWriting a Chinese name is not drawing, it is a sequence: every character has a fixed stroke order that produces the balanced, confident handwriting native readers expect. Three steps and you are writing your own name.
Watch the whole character. Press Write It above and follow the animation from the first stroke to the last. The light outline stays visible so you always know where the next stroke lands.
Switch to quiz mode. Tap the ? button on a card and the character hides itself: draw each stroke with your mouse or finger, and the tool checks position and order stroke by stroke.
Take it to paper. Print the practice sheet: your name appears in rice grids as light guides to trace, with empty grids after it. Hearing the name too? The pinyin translator reads it aloud.
You do not need to memorize thousands of characters one by one: almost all of them follow six rules, taught in every Chinese elementary school. Type the example characters above to see each rule in motion.
| Rule | Chinese | Example | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Horizontal first, then vertical | 先横后竖 | 十 | the horizontal 一 goes before the vertical 丨 |
| Down-left before down-right | 先撇后捺 | 人 | the left-falling 丿 goes before the right-falling 捺 |
| Top to bottom | 从上到下 | 三 | all three horizontals are written highest first |
| Left to right | 从左到右 | 川 | the three verticals go left first |
| Outside first, close the box last | 先外后内再封口 | 回 | the frame closes only after the inside is done |
| Middle first, then the sides | 先中间后两边 | 小 | the center hook is written before the two dots |
Ask a Chinese person about a name and the answer often comes in strokes: 王 is a four-stroke surname, 明 is an eight-stroke character. The count is basic information about a character, the way syllable count is for a word.
Traditional naming numerology counts strokes by the historical Kangxi dictionary, which can differ from modern simplified forms. That is why a naming discussion may quote a different number than the one you count on screen.
Beyond numerology, calligraphy values visual balance: a surname with many strokes next to a simple given name can look top-heavy. Our name generator keeps this in mind, and the meaning of each character is in the name meaning lookup.
The Print Practice Sheet button lays your name out for real paper: each character first appears light inside a 米字格 grid so you can trace it, then empty grids follow for freehand writing. The diagonal and cross guide lines keep proportions honest, exactly the way it is taught in school. Print as many copies as you need: it is just your browser's print dialog, nothing is uploaded. Counting characters for an essay instead? The Chinese character counter is the companion tool.
Type or paste your Chinese name in the box at the top of this page. Each character gets its own card with an animation that writes it stroke by stroke, its pinyin, and its stroke count. Play the animation as many times as you like, or switch a character into quiz mode and write the strokes yourself.
Stroke order is the fixed sequence in which the strokes of a Chinese character are written. Chinese schoolchildren learn it alongside the character itself, because a consistent order makes handwriting faster, more balanced and easier to read. Dictionaries and handwriting input methods also rely on it: write a character in the wrong order and a native speaker can often tell from the shape alone.
The card under each character shows its individual stroke count, and the line below the cards shows the total for the whole name. For the sample name 王小明 that is 4 + 3 + 8 = 15 strokes. Counts come from the same stroke data that powers the animations, so they always match what you see written.
米字格 (mǐ zì gé, "rice-grid") is the square practice grid used across China when learning to write. Light guide lines cross it horizontally, vertically and diagonally, so every stroke has a reference point for position and angle. The printable practice sheet on this page lays your name out in these grids: the first characters appear as light guides to trace, followed by empty grids to write in.
Yes, and a name is actually the best place to start: it is usually two or three characters, you already know how it should look, and you will write it often. Watch each animation a few times, then switch on quiz mode, which waits for you to draw each stroke in order and tells you immediately if one is wrong. Print the practice sheet to keep writing offline.
The stroke data behind this page covers thousands of everyday characters, including every character our name generator uses, but some rare characters are missing from the data set. When that happens the card tells you directly instead of guessing. Everything else about the character, including its pinyin, still shows normally.