The story
From the Wade–Giles romanization of the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for 年號／年号 (niánhào) Wade-Giles romanization nien²-hao⁴.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
nien-hao
Today it means: The regnal year, reign period, or regnal title used when traditionally numbering years in a Chinese emperor's reign and in naming certain Chinese rulers. Full definition →