The solution is easier than you might imagine.

Do they have an app for that?

Better than an app, translation into other languages and their appropriate fonts are built into the operating system of Iphones, I don’t know about other brands.  You can write in almost any language. Just switch keyboards to any language you want. Settings/General/Keyboards/Add New Keyboard.

Then when you want to compose a Chinese character –

• Open your email program.
• Click on the little globe.
• On the screen that comes up, use your finger to draw the character.
• A selection of characters that the Chinese translator thinks you may have drawn comes up.
• Compare the characters to what you were trying to draw.
• Tap the correct character and it pops up to the email message box.
• Do the next character you want.
• When you have all of the characters you plan to do, email the message to yourself.
• Now you can copy, cut and paste the character into many programs.
• Make a file/page that has all your characters on it so it is easy to copy for future projects, instead of having to go find them in your email.

All without a Chinese keyboard.. I did not say it was easy or fast, but it works.

It does help if your ancestor had decent handwriting, was not in a hurry, and you have several samples to compare.

NOW WHAT?

What can you do with your new found ability to turn your Chinese ancestors names into something modifiable?

If you want to have a wide selection of Chinese font opportunities, check out . . .

https://www.freechinesefont.com

where you will find 384 different fonts for you to download, including: 44 Cute; 41 Calligraphy; 33 Handwriting; 7 Elegant; 124 Simplified Chinese; 25 Pop; 15 Headline; 2 Song Ti; 51 Traditional Chinese; 29 Modern and 8 Rounded. 21 of which are specifically tagged in “Commercial-use OK”

The “Cute” type styles really made me smile . .

There is even a font with lots of hearts in the characters.

If you don’t want to download and install fonts, ChineseTools.eu has 14 different fonts built in, and all you have to do is paste the word or words into the box, pick your font and size and download the finished calligraphy.

https://www.chinesetools.eu

This site has links to a multitude of interesting tools including: A Chinese calligraphy generator; Stroke order where you put in the character and it shows you the order you should use to write the character yourself; Chinese Family Relationship Titles; Characters for Chinese Tatoos with their meanings; A Character Decomposition tool ; A Chinese Calendar that you can convert any date from the Julian Calendar into the equivalent Chinese date, once you get to the proper month and year calendar it shows the Chinese holidays in that month; A love calculator based on both persons birth dates and Chinese Astrology; and MANY more tools. Some work better than others. You need to make sure the type style is Simplified Chinese. There is also a converter for Traditional to Simplified Chinese.

Here are some of my favorite tools at this site.

https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

Screenshot from the Chinesetools.eu Calligraphy Generator

This Character and the ones below, are the Surname “Wong” in different Chinese Typestyles. It was generated at https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

This font is very much like many of the family “Chop”s. A Stamp usually carved into soapstone, most often pressed into a red stamp pad to print on artwork or stamp at the bottom of letters and documents. It was generated at https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

This style is also a traditional font used for Chop’s. It was generated at: https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

This font looks a lot like it is imitating bamboo. It was generated at:https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

I have seen these fonts embroidered on Chines hats and robes. This font looks a lot like it is imitating bamboo. They are perfect for bold art. They were generated at:https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/drawing-name

JACKIE – Example of Word Art from Chinesetools.eu

Enter your name or any word, pick from one of 14 fonts, pick from one of 35 Chinese Paintings and it will generate same as Chinese Art including the name and a chop.

Examples of two of the pieces of art you can put any Chinese characters you want on.

You may download it and print as you desire from their website at:

https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinese-seals/

Enter Chinese characters and it will turn it into a Chop Seal in either red with white background or white with red background, in one of several different fonts.

You need to convert your character to Simplified Chinese, there is a link to a tool to do that.

http://www.chine-culture.com/en/chinese-calligraphy

Enter Chinese Character onto page. Choose the size of the Chinese calligraphy model. Pick one of 10 Chinese fonts. Choose the orientation of the characters and generate the calligraphy.

http://www.words-chinese.com/text-to-image

Besides the Chinese Calligraphy Generator the site also has Traditional>Simple Character converter and a Pinyin-Converter

There are other great sites, but these are the ones I have been using.