“My English name is Bowinn Ma, but in Chinese, it’s Ma Bo Wen. Ma literally translates as “horse,” which is the family name, and Bo Wen literally translates to “plentiful script.” But what it means can be roughly translated as “ocean of knowledge” or “broad scholar.””

— Bowinn Ma

It means someone who has a broad understanding of many things and someone who has the wisdom to use this knowledge in a good way. It represents what my parents and grandparents had hoped I would become as an adult. In English, my name is just a name, a series of sounds used to identify me. But in my traditional language, those two simple syllables are a culmination of all of the hopes and dreams that my family have had of me since my birth — aspirations that could never truly be translated properly across cultures in as succinct a way.
British Columbia Legislative Hansard, March 12, 2018: INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES
Meaning of Name

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Bowinn Ma6

Canadian politician 1985

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“Literal translations:”

Victor Hugo book The History of a Crime

On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées. One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas. One withstands the invasion of armies; one does not withstand the invasion of ideas. Histoire d'un Crime (The History of a Crime) [written 1852, published 1877], Conclusion, ch. X. Trans. T.H. Joyce and Arthur Locker http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Histoire_d%E2%80%99un_crime_-_Conclusion#X. Alternative translations and paraphrased variants: One cannot resist an idea whose time has come. No one can resist an idea whose time has come. Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come. Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come. No army can stop an idea whose time has come. Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come. There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. Many of these paraphrases have a closer match in a passage from Gustave Aimard's earlier-published novel Les Francs-Tireurs (1861): there is something more powerful than the brute force of bayonets: it is the idea whose time has come and hour struck Original French: Il y a quelque chose de plus puissant que la force brutale des baïonnettes: c'est l'idée dont le temps est venu et l'heure est sonnée Source: [The Freebooters, Gustave, Aimard, (tr. unknown), 1861, London, Ward and Lock, 57, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.087603619?urlappend=%3Bseq=67] Source: [Les Francs Tireurs, Gustave, Aimard, 1861, Paris, Amyot, 68, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b596684?urlappend=%3Bseq=76]

“Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.)”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist