Entry № 11418 · Chinese origin

Wan'er Wan'er — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ WAHN-er /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Chinese
Meaning
"Tang poet-stateswoman (Shangguan Wan'er)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Medieval (Chinese)

A name that means "tang poet-stateswoman (shangguan wan'er)".

Wan'er (婉兒, 664-710) means "graceful child." Shangguan Wan'er was the Tang court poet, stateswoman, and confidante of Wu Zetian — orphaned as a child when her grandfather was executed, she was raised in the palace, rose to become Wu Zetian's secretary, *drafted imperial edicts, and held the title of zhaorong (high-ranking concubine). Her tomb was discovered in 2013 near Xi'an*, with an epitaph detailing her remarkable life.

Subject of the 2014 Chinese TV drama The Glory of Tang Dynasty.

Graceful child. Wu Zetian's poet-secretary who drafted imperial edicts.

The name in its native script.

上官婉兒
Transliteration
Shàngguān Wǎn'ér
Pronunciation
/ ˈwɑːn.ɜːr /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Wan'er stands.

Wan'er does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Wan'ers before her.

Real people
Shangguan Wan'er
Tang court poet-stateswoman.
664 – 710
In fiction
Wan'er
Tang court literature.

Names connected to Wan'er.

The number behind Wan'er.

7

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Wan'er reduce to 7, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.