Theodore Ting Wong (June 26, 1876 – January 29, 1919) a.k.a. Huang Ding (),

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

Zuoting () or Tso-tsing, was a Chinese translator and scholar.
Original Chinese version: - Original title: "福尔摩斯为何姓“福”？不是因为分不清f和h的福建人，而是因为上海人!"
Original text here
/ref> Theodore Wong's father, Kong Chai Wong (), originated from

Xiamen Xiamen,), also known as Amoy ( ; from the Zhangzhou Hokkien pronunciation, zh, c=, s=, t=, p=, poj=Ē͘-mûi, historically romanized as Amoy, is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Stra ...

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

, while Theodore Wong himself was born in Shanghai; Kong Chai began living in Shanghai in 1845. He attended St. John's College in Shanghai, then Episcopal High School in 1892–1894, and then

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

in 1894–1896 as the first Chinese student. He did not receive a degree from UVA; at the time the majority of students studied to get certifications instead of bachelor's degrees. He returned to China in January 1897 and began teaching courses at St. John's. He and Yan Huiqing (W. W. Yen) cofounded the Shanghai

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

. Theodore Wong married Julia Sih (Xue Pa, ) in 1898. They had four children who survived to adulthood, all female, while one daughter and two sons died before adulthood. He joined the Shansi University Translation Department, and he, with Zhang Zaixin (), translated 23 books. Theodore Wong and Zhang Zaixin translated six

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...

works in 1901. Theodore Wong rendered Holmes's name as 福而摩司, which would be read as Fú'érmósī in Modern Standard Mandarin. Subsequent publishers began rendering Holmes's name differently, as 福爾摩斯 in Traditional Chinese, which would be 福尔摩斯 in Simplified Chinese and Fú'ěrmósī in Modern Standard Mandarin; this version became the common way of rendering "Holmes" in Chinese languages. Theodore Wong became

Jinshi ''Jinshi'' () was the highest and final degree in the imperial examination in Imperial China. The examination was usually taken in the imperial capital in the palace, and was also called the Metropolitan Exam. Recipients are sometimes referre ...

in 1909. He began supervising the Shanghai-Nanjing Railroad in 1909. In 1911 he became the

Chinese Educational Mission The Chinese Educational Mission (1872–1881) was the pioneering but frustrated attempt by reform-minded officials of the Qing dynasty to let a group of 120 Chinese students be educated in the United States. In 1871, Yung Wing, himself the fi ...

's manager, and so began living in Washington, D.C. In 1919, he was killed with two other Chinese men. He died of blunt force trauma and gunshot wounds. A man was prosecuted for the killing, but the courts overturned his sentence in the case Ziang Sung Wan v. United States. Due to preservatives, his body was taken back to China on February 14, 1920; an open-casket funeral was held on March 7 of that year at Church of Our Savior in Shanghai.

References

University of Virginia alumni 1876 deaths 1919 deaths People from Shanghai Deaths by firearm in Washington, D.C. Episcopal High School (Alexandria, Virginia) alumni {{China-stub