Chinese Tattoo for "Hero" + Name Translation

I received this Chinese tattoo confirmation request from Becky:  "I was told the top one was hero and the bottom one was my husbands name Eric. Would you please help me and tell me the meaning. I looked up hero my self and got something way different. The tattoo is on my foot and it is not by any other tattoo's."

Hi Becky,

For the word 杰 - at first glance, I recognized it to be common Chinese male name. If I were to speak for the average Chinese folk, one probably would not immediately draw any connection to "hero".

The main reason Becky found the word "hero" a completely different one in her own research (which probably was 英雄, as in the same translation for the Chinese movie Hero with Jet Li) is that character itself has a meaning along the lines of "outstanding" or "prominent", or at best "an outstanding person", which is primarily used only in ancient/literary text.

In other words, this character should probably not have been used for "hero", but it's also not completely wrong. I suppose that if the symbolism to you is most important, then at least it's a good looking character. Incidentally, it also is one of the characters in Jet Lee's Chinese name -- 李連杰.

As for the name "Eric" -- it's more or less correct. Because English names translated into Chinese are merely approximations of English sounds, there is some flexibility in their translation. However, this also means that such English name translations evolve, and Becky's one is an example of an outdated version. The good news: it means what you intended.