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BEIJING — What’s in a name? If it’s Donald Trump in Chinese, it could be as controversial as the president is back home.

Trump’s official Chinese name is Te Lang Pu. That translates to “extraordinary, bright and popular” — the of kind of name he might choose for himself.

But it also can mean “unusual, loud and common,” surely the preference for his detractors in the United States.

The reason for such stark differences is that translations of foreign names are based on Chinese characters , which are words, not letters. As a result, when you write a foreign name in Chinese, you add meaning whether you intend to or not.

Because of the potential for offense, China has an official name translation department inside the state-run Xinhua News Agency . Those workers translate dozens of foreign names every day, and if they have a potentially sensitive one, they run it by the Foreign Ministry for approval.

Li Xuejun, the head of the department, said it has been busy in recent weeks with naming the new political leaders in Washington.

Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson becomes Di Le Sen, which translates to “stem, coerce, dark.” President Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway is Kang Wei, meaning “healthy, leather hide.” And Ryan Zinke , Trump’s nominee for Interior secretary is Jin Ke, which means “ferry crossing, gram or saliva, digest.”

Li said he tries to choose neutral names. To help his team do that, they have a “palette” of about 500 pre-selected Chinese characters to choose from — ones that are recognizable and inoffensive.

Many are Chinese family or place names, such as the “Jin” in Zinke’s name, which is part of Tianjin , a city in northeastern China.

Since Chinese characters have multiple meanings, it’s hard to avoid amusing coincidences.

Li said the translator’s primary goal is to find a good phonetic match, which sometimes limits their choice of characters.

“It is quite different from Chinese parents giving their children names and is also different from foreigners taking Chinese names. … It is serious academic work,” Li said.

Li and his department have at times come under pressure to change their translations.

Trump is a good example. The surname was first translated into Chinese in 1965 in Xinhua’s first dictionary of foreign names.

But Hong Kong and Taiwan picked a different translation: Chuan Pu (pronounced Chwan-poo). Though it doesn’t begin with a T, it actually sounds closer to Trump because it is shorter and softer than Te Lang Pu.

Daoist monks have even chimed in, saying it would be better for China-U.S. relations if his name were changed.

“Te is an extreme character. We almost never use it in a Chinese name,” said Chen Yifeng, who interprets the meaning of patterns found in nature.

Chen prefers Chuan Pu because “Chuan” means river — a water element to balance out Trump’s fiery nature.

His colleague Chen Daoning agreed, “Te belongs to fire. People with Te in their name are usually very blunt.”

Chuan Pu also has drawbacks. It means Chinese spoken with a Sichuan accent . And it has already given rise to a nickname: Chuang Po, or “broken bed.”