Chinese name

Although some terms from the ancient Chinese naming system, such as xìng (姓) and míng (名), are still used today, it used to be much more complex.

In the first half of the 1st millennium BC, during the Zhou dynasty, members of the Chinese nobility could possess up to four different names—personal names (míng 名), clan names (xìng 姓), lineage names (shì 氏), and "style" or "courtesy" names (zì 字)— as well as up to two titles: standard titles (jué 爵), and posthumous titles (shì 諡; 谥 or shìhào 諡號; 谥号).[1]

Commoners possessed only a personal name (ming), and the modern concept of a "surname" or "family name" did not yet exist at any level of society.[1] The old lineage (shi) and clan names (xing) began to become "family names" in the modern sense and trickle down to commoners around 500 BC, during the late Spring and Autumn period, but the process took several centuries to complete, and it was not until the late Han dynasty (1st and 2nd centuries AD) that all Chinese commoners had surnames.[2]

Although there are currently over 6,000 Chinese surnames including non-Han Chinese surnames (姓, xìng) in use in China,[3] the colloquial expression for the "Chinese people" is Bǎixìng (百姓) "Hundred Surnames", and a mere hundred surnames still make up over 85% of China's 1.3 billion citizens.[4] In fact, just the top three—Wang (王), Li (李), and Zhang (張; 张)—cover more than 20% of the population.[4] This homogeneity results from the great majority of Han family names having only one character, while the small number of compound surnames is mostly restricted to minority groups.[5]

Chinese surnames arose from two separate prehistoric traditions: the xìng (姓) and the shì (氏). The original xìng were clans of royalty at the Shang court and always included the 'woman' radical 女. The shì did not originate from families, but denoted fiefs, states, and titles granted or recognized by the Shang court. Apart from the Jiang (姜) and Yao (姚) families, the original xìng have nearly disappeared but the terms ironically reversed their meaning. Xìng is now used to describe the shì surnames which replaced them, while shì is used to refer to maiden names.

The enormous modern clans sometimes share ancestral halls with one another, but actually consist of many different lineages gathered under a single name. As an example, the surname Ma (馬; 马) includes descendants of the Warring States–era bureaucrat Zhao She, descendants of his subjects in his fief of Mafu, Koreans from an unrelated confederation, and Muslims from all over western China who chose it to honor Muhammad.[6]

Traditionally, a married woman keeps her name unchanged, without adopting her husband's surname.[7] A child would inherit his or her father's surname. This is still the norm in mainland China, though the marriage law explicitly states that a child may use either parent's surname. It is also possible, though far less common, for a child to combine both parents' surnames. Due to Western influence, some areas of greater China, such as Hong Kong and Macau, have also adopted the tradition of a woman changing her last name, or prepending her husband's to her own.

Chinese given names (名字, míngzi) show much greater diversity than the surnames, while still being restricted almost universally to one or two syllables. Including variant forms, there are at least 106,000 individual Chinese characters,[8] but as of 2006, in the People's Republic of China Public Security Bureau only approximately 32,000 are supported for computer input[9] and even fewer are in common use. Given names are chosen based on a range of factors, including possession of pleasing sound and tonal qualities, as well as bearing positive associations or a beautiful shape. Two-character ming may be chosen for each character's separate meaning and qualities, but the name remains a single unit which is almost always said together even when the combination no longer 'means' anything.

Today, two-character names are more common and make up more than 80% of Chinese names.[10] However, this custom has been consistent only since the Ming dynasty. About 70% of all names were only one character long during the early Han and that rose beyond 98% after the usurping Wang Mang banned all two-character names outright. Although his Xin dynasty was short-lived, the law was not repealed until 400 years later, when northern invasions and interest in establishing lineages revived interest in such longer names.[10] The Tang and Song saw populations with a majority of two-character names for the first time, but the Liao between them and the Yuan afterward both preferred single character names. The restoration of Han dominance under the Ming, promotion of Han culture under the Qing, and development of generation names established the current traditions.[10]

Given names resonant of qualities which are perceived to be either masculine or feminine are frequently given, with males being linked with strength and firmness and females with beauty and flowers. It is also more common for female names to employ diminutives like Xiǎo or doubled characters in their formal names, although there are famous male examples such as Li Xiaoping and Yo-Yo Ma. People from the countryside previously often bore names that reflect rural life—for example, Daniu (大牛, lit. "Big Bull") and Dazhu (大柱, lit. "Big Pole")—but such names are becoming less common.

It is also considered bad form to name a child after a famous person, although tens of thousands might happen to share a common name such as "Liu Xiang".[11] Similarly, owing to the traditional naming taboos, it is very uncommon in China to name a child directly after a relative, since such children would permit junior family members to inappropriately use the personal names of senior ones. Ancestors can leave a different kind of mark: Chinese naming schemes often employ a generation name. Every child recorded into the family records in each generation would share an identical character in their names. Sixteen, thirty-two, or more generations would be worked out in advance to form a generation poem. For example, the one selected in 1737 for the family of Mao Zedong read:[12]

立 Stand tall & display unstintingly before gentlemen,

文 And study & method will expand the borders of our fortune.

祖 Ancestral favors bequeath kindness through the ages,

世 Descendants forever obliged for their prosperity.

This scheme was in its fourteenth generation when Mao rejected it for the naming of his own children, preferring to give his sons the generational name An (岸, lit. "Lofty", "Proud") instead. A similar practice was observed regarding the stage names of Chinese opera performers: all the students entering a training academy in the same year would adopt the same first character in their new "given name". For example, as part of the class entering the National Drama School in 1933, Li Yuru adopted a name with the central character "jade" (玉).[13]

Depending on the region and particular family, daughters were not entered into the family records and thus did not share the boys' generation name, although they may have borne a separate one among themselves. Even where generation names are not used, sibling names are frequently related. For example, a boy named Song (松, lit. "Pine") might have a sister named Mei (梅, lit. "Plum"). In some families, the siblings' names have the same radical. For example, in the Jia (賈) clan in Dream of the Red Chamber, a novel mirroring the rise and decline of the Qing Dynasty, there is Zheng (政), She (赦), and Min (敏) in the first generation, Lian (璉), Zhen (珍), and Huan (環) in the second, and Yun (芸), Qin (芹), and Lan (蘭) in the third.

More recently, although generation names have become less common, many personal names reflect periods of Chinese history. For example, following the victory of the Communists in the Civil War, many Chinese bore "revolutionary names" such as Qiangguo (強國; 强国, lit. "Strong Nation" or "Strengthening the Nation") or Dongfeng (東風; 东风, lit. "Eastern Wind"). Similarly, on Taiwan, it used to be common to incorporate one of the four characters of the name "Republic of China" (中華民國; 中华民国, Zhōnghuá Mínguó) into masculine names. Periodic fad names like Aoyun (奧運 奥运; "Olympics") also appear. Owing to both effects, there has also been a recent trend in China to hire fortune tellers to change people's names to new ones more in accordance with traditional Taoist and five element practices. In creating a new Chinese name, it is sometimes the practice to analyze the number of strokes in the characters used in the potential name and attempt to use characters that produce specific totals of strokes.[14]

The process of converting Chinese names into a phonetic alphabet is called romanization.

In mainland China, Chinese names have been romanized using the Hanyu Pinyin system since 1958. Although experiments with the complete conversion of Chinese to the Pinyin alphabet failed,[15] it remains in common use and has become the transcription system of the United Nations and the International Organization for Standardization.[16] Taiwan officially adopted Hanyu Pinyin as one of their romanisation schemes in 2009,[17][18] although it continues to allow its citizens to use other romanisations on official documents such as passports, of which Hanyu Pinyin remains unpopular. The system is easily identified by its frequent use of letters uncommon in English, such as "q", "x", and "z"; when tones are included, they are noted via tone marks. In Pinyin, 毛澤東 is written as Máo Zédōng.

Proper use of Pinyin means treating the surname and given name as precisely two separate words with no spaces between the letters of multiple Chinese characters. For example, "王秀英" is properly rendered either with its tone marks as "Wáng Xiùyīng" or without as "Wang Xiuying", but should not be written as "Wang Xiu Ying", "Wang XiuYing", "Wangxiuying", and so on. In the rare cases where a surname consists of more than one character, it too should be written as a unit: "Sima Qian", not "Si Ma Qian" or "Si Maqian". However, as the Chinese language makes almost no use of spaces, native speakers often do not know these rules and simply put a space between each Chinese character of their name, causing those used to alphabetical languages to think of the xing and ming as three words instead of two. Tone marks are also commonly omitted in practice.

Many overseas Chinese, Taiwanese and historic names still employ the older Wade–Giles system. This English-based system can be identified by its use of the digraphs "hs" (pinyin x) and "ts" (pinyin z and c) and by its use of hyphens to connect the syllables of words containing more than one character. Correct reading depends on the inclusion of superscript numbers and the use of apostrophes to distinguish between different consonants, but in practice both of these are commonly omitted. In Wade–Giles, 毛澤東 is written as Mao Tse-tung, as the system hyphenates names between the characters. For example, Wang Xiuying and Sima Qian are written in Wade as "Wang² Hsiu⁴-Ying¹" and "Ssu¹Ma³ Ch'ien¹".

Pinyin and Wade–Giles both represent the pronunciation of Mandarin, based on the Beijing dialect. In Hong Kong, Macau, and the diaspora communities in southeast Asia and abroad, people often romanize their names according to their own native language, for example, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Hakka. This occurs amid a plethora of competing romanization systems. In Hong Kong (and other British administered territories) during British colonial rule, Chinese families usually adopted English spelling conventions for their names: "Lee" for 李, "Shaw" for 邵, and so forth. In Macau, Chinese names are similarly sometimes still transliterated based on Portuguese orthography and Jyutping. It is common practice for the Chinese diaspora communities to use spaces in between each character of their name.

It is common for many different Chinese names to have the same transliteration when tone is not marked (and therefore come from different Chinese characters).

For example, English spelling of the Chinese first name Ming has many different associated Chinese characters, all of which have different meanings. Therefore, when the name is written in Chinese, a person called Ming can have a completely different name from another person who is also called Ming.

Most Chinese character "Ming"s share the same form between simplified and traditional Chinese.

• 明 (meaning: bright)
• 名 (meaning: reputation)
• 銘（铭）(meaning: poetic motto)
• 茗 (meaning: tea)
• 命 (meaning: life)
• 鳴（鸣）(meaning: sing)

From their earliest recorded history, the Chinese observed a number of naming taboos, avoiding the names of their elders, ancestors, and rulers out of respect and fear. As a result, the upper classes of traditional Chinese culture typically employed a variety of names over the course of their lives, and the emperors and sanctified deceased had still others.

Current naming practices are more straightforward and consistent, but a few pseudonyms or alternate names remain common.

When discussing Chinese writers, Chinese and Japanese scholars do not consistently use particular names, whether they are private names or alternative names.[19]

Within families, it is often considered inappropriate or even offensive to use the given names of relatives who are senior to the speaker. Instead, it is more customary to identify each family member by abstract hierarchical connections: among siblings, gender and birth order (big sister, second sister, and so on); for the extended family, the manner of relationship (by birth or marriage; from the maternal or paternal side).

The hierarchical titles of junior relatives are seldom used except in formal situations, or as indirect reference when speaking to family members who are even younger than the person in question. Children can be called by their given names, or their parents may use their nicknames.

When speaking of non-family social acquaintances, people are generally referred to by a title, for example Mother Li (Chinese: 李媽媽; pinyin: lǐ māma) or Mrs. Zhu (朱太太, pinyin: zhū tàitai). Personal names can be used when referring to adult friends or to children, although, unlike in the West, referring to somebody by their full name (including surname) is common even among friends, especially if the person's full name is only composed of two or three syllables. It is common to refer to a person as lǎo (老, old) or xiǎo (小, young) followed by their family name, thus Lǎo Wáng (老王) or Xiǎo Zhān (小战). Xiǎo is also frequently used as a diminutive, when it is typically paired with the second or only character in a person's name, rather than the surname. Note that because old people are well respected in Chinese society, lǎo (old) does not carry disrespect, offense or any negative implications even if it is used to refer to an older woman. Despite this, it is advisable for non-Chinese to avoid calling a person xiǎo-something or lǎo-something unless they are so-called by other Chinese people and it is clear that the appellation is acceptable and widely used. Otherwise, the use of the person's full name, or alternatively, their surname followed by xiānsheng (Chinese: 先生, mister) or nǚshì (女士, madam) is relatively neutral and unlikely to cause offense.

Within school settings and when addressing former classmates, it is common to refer to them as older siblings, e.g. elder brother Zhao (趙哥; Zhào Gē) or e.g. elder sister Zhang (張姐; Zhāng Jǐe) if they were of senior classes, or simply to show respect or closeness. The opposite (e.g. younger brother Zhao) is rarely used. This custom spawns from traditional forms of respectful address, where it was considered rude to directly address your seniors.

Whereas titles in many cultures are commonly solely determined by gender and, in some cases, marital status, the occupation or even work title of a person can be used as a title as a sign of respect in common address in Chinese culture. Because of the prestigious position of a teacher in traditional culture, a teacher is invariably addressed as such by his or her students (e.g. 李老師; Lǐ Lǎoshī; 'Teacher Li'), and commonly by others as a mark of respect. Where applicable, "Teacher Surname" is considered more respectful than "Mr/Mrs/Miss Surname" in Chinese. A professor is also commonly addressed as "teacher", though "professor" is also accepted as a respectful title. By extension, a junior or less experienced member of a work place or profession would address a more senior member as "Teacher".

Similarly, engineers are often addressed as such, though often shortened to simply the first character of the word "engineer" – Chinese: 工; pinyin: Gōng. Should the person being addressed be the head of a company (or simply the middle manager of another company to whom you would like to show respect), one might equally address them by the title "zǒng" (總), which means "general" or "overall", and is the first character of titles such as "Director General" or "general manager" (e.g. 李總; Lǐ zǒng), or, if they are slightly lower down on the corporate hierarchy but nonetheless a manager, by affixing Jīnglǐ (經理, manager).

The signature of Sun Yat-sen; in English Chinese people usually keep their names in Chinese order unless they live or travel abroad

Chinese people, except for those traveling or living outside China, rarely reverse their names to the western naming order (given name, then family name). Western publications usually preserve the Chinese naming order, with the family name first, followed by the given name. Beginning in the early 1980s, in regards to people from Mainland China,[23] western publications began using the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system instead of earlier romanization systems; this resulted from the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China in 1979.[24]

Although it is generally possible to guess the gender of Chinese names from the choice of Chinese characters used, it is almost impossible to guess the name's gender when it is romanized. For example, 王晓明 is more likely a male name but the romanized name Xiaoming Wang could correspond to many Chinese names (王晓明, 王小明, 王晓鸣, 汪晓明 ...), and thus it is near-impossible to guess the gender of the name.[25]

The usual presentation of Chinese names in English differs from the usual presentations of modern Japanese names, since modern Japanese names are usually reversed to fit the western order in English. In English the presentation of Chinese names is similar to those of Korean names.[26] As of 1989, Pinyin became the preferred romanization system in works discussing contemporary China, while English-language books relevant to Japanese history still used the Wade–Giles system to romanize Chinese names more often than other romanization systems.[27] As of 1993, Wade–Giles was still used in Taiwan.[28] Unlike mainland Chinese, Taiwanese people usually place a dash between the two characters of the given name, similar to Korean names. This is also the case for the standard styling of Hong Kong Chinese names, where the given name is hyphenated.[29][30][31] Names of Malaysian Chinese and Singaporean Chinese people are often romanized inconsistently, usually based on dialect pronunciation, but are usually expressed in three parts (e.g., Goh Chok Tong).[32]

For people with just a single given name or with compound surnames and single given name, the western name order may add to the complication of confusing the surname and given name.[33]

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, Chinese names are indexed by the family name with no inversion and no comma, unless it is of a Chinese person who has adopted a Western name.[34]

In the Japanese language, Chinese names can be pronounced either approximating the original Chinese, the Local reading (現地読み) of the characters, or using a Sino-Japanese On'yomi reading (音読み) to pronounce the Chinese characters. Local readings are often written in katakana rather than kanji, but not always. For example, 毛泽东 (Mao Zedong) is pronounced Mō Takutō using an On'yomi reading, whereas Beijing (北京) is spelled with kanji but pronounced Pekin (ペキン), with a local reading (which may also be considered a post-Tōsō-on reading), rather than Hokkyō (which would be the Kan-on reading).

• Naming laws in the People's Republic of China
• Onomastics

Kinds of Chinese group-names:

• Chinese clan
• Generation name

Kinds of personal names:

• Art name
• Chinese given name
• Chinese surname
• Courtesy name

Kinds of Chinese monarchical names:

• Chinese era name
• Posthumous name
• Temple name

Other links and influences from Chinese names:

• Indonesian-sounding names adopted by Chinese Indonesians
• List of common Chinese surnames
• Japanese name
• Korean name
• Vietnamese name

• What is the Chinese name
• Can Names Bring Good Fortune? - NamepediA Blog, article on superstitions about names from China