www.cheungswingchun.co.uk 張氏詠春
The Chinese character set is AB can sometime be seen as CB or even DB where B is the word that literately means spring (season).
The difference between A, C and D are: A is the Cantonese version, C is the Mandarin version and that both are like English syllable, requiring character B to make sense. Whereas, D translated means eternal or more commonly understood as ‘ever-lasting’.
AB=詠春, CB=咏春, DB=永春, B=春 , A=詠 , C=咏 , D=永.
Wing Chun is thus ‘Ever Lasting Spring’ and like with most things associated with beauty, it is also a girl’s name which the leading Founding member, the nun Ng Moi named the art after her first student (depending upon which version of history you take).
The lesser alternative history in the name and thus the origins of the art is that DB was in fact an underground resistance movement in the era of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) which may have contributed to the development of the Wing Chun Butterfly knives Form.
Another interpretation of history is that the Founder member, the nun Ng Moi may have named the art after the Shaolin hall of ‘Ever Lasting Spring’ where she had studied but most definately would not have developed Wing Chun there.