Chinese names question

[riventhorn]

 I've had the "never use one-syllable names alone" drummed into me, but I am now confused about how to handle spelling out two-syllable names. For example, is it Kun Lun or Kunlun? Guo Chang Cheng or Guo Changcheng? or in Detective L, would it be Qin Xiaoman or Qin Xiao Man? Which is preferred? Does it make any difference? I've seen it done both ways.

I'm sure this has been answered somewhere on the internet before, but I was hoping my flist can save me from trawling Google. :) 

Comments

[extrapenguin]

The official pinyin standard is Guo Changcheng, Qin Xiaoman. This is also least confusing to Western eyes: there is a surname and a given name. However, some people for some reason use "Guo Chang Cheng", whether out of ignorance or some other reason, I cannot say. There are fandoms on AO3 that use both methods, but I would please urge you to use the official pinyin standard of "Guo Changcheng", because that's the standard, and the other one looks ugly.

(Then there's also the non-pinyin transcription systems, where e.g. Wade-Giles is habitually written with a hyphen: Ch'in Hsiao-man. For mainland China stuff, pinyin is the accepted standard.)

[riventhorn]

Thank you!!