Talk:Chinese name

math> 3 characters, and thus, most Chinese names consist of 3 characters.

In the last 30+ years, giving children one-character names has been very popular in mainland China. I'm not sure about the exact percentages and numbers, but it is quite obvious. About 6 in 10 mainland people I know that are 30 and below have two-character names (one character surname-one character given). "Overseas" Chinese (inc. HK, Macau Taiwan) have not really experienced this phenomenon. Have a look at names of older Chinese, such as politicans, and compare them to young Chinese, such as Olympic athletes. You'll notice a stark comparison. It seems to harken back to the age of the Han dynasty and before when it was the norm for Chinese to have one-character personal names. Personally, I think it should be the other way. Use of longer names with three or more characters in the personal name and/or surnames with two or more characters is the definite way to go. A few interesting suggestions: http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-3-20/27200.html. 13:22, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

One-character given names are very common in China. I don't think this is a good thing from a practical point of view. There must be 100,000s of people with exactly the same (full, written) name and many more with names which sound the same (but different characters). LDHan 08:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

---

In the United States at least, many Chinese seem to use a variation not mentioned here: Using both a Chinese (not Western) given name and their Chinese surname, but in the western order. --Delirium 06:08, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Similar patterns seem to exist in several places influenced by Western culture (e.g. Hongkong, Taiwan, etc). -Dpr 07:44, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Not true. I live in Taiwan and my English name on my passport is following the pattern of surname-given name. -- G.S.K.Lee 05:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Adressing people

The article says:

"Note that because old people are well respected in Chinese society, lao (old) does not carry disrespect, offense or any negative implications even if it's used to refer to an older woman."

A professor of mine has stated something similar. However I tried this with a friend from Mainland China and was told in a very agitated manner that I shouldn't do this, you can only do this with men. What exactly are social connotations of 老? -anonymous

I've edited the article to go into this more deeply, but the long and the short of it is, xiao and lao are both relatively regional (much more common in the north than in the south) and further are generally not constructed on the spot by a stranger (as mister or mrs might be used in English) but are rather established nicknames. As such, you're best off never using these unless other people are using them. This rule is advisable even for Chinese, because, as I said, these habits are very regional and may be different in unexpected ways from the place you grew up in.

Personally, when I hear lao-so-and-so my brain seems to assume that they are male, and while I can find no specific objection to the prefix being used to show respect to a particularly old woman, I must admit that I would never do this and that I have never heard anyone else do this. YMMV... 70.132.3.92 02:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

"Limited supply

With a limited supply of family names, Chinese depend on using given names to introduce variety in naming.'

In what culture is the "supply" of family names not "limited"...or in fact does the range of family names influence at all the choice of given names in any culture? Logically speaking, individuals do not choose their own or their children's family names anyway (except in rare circumstances). --Dpr 07:44, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Or, to put it another way, "You're from Ireland? Wow, do you know Patrick Kelly?" HouseOfScandal 18:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Question: flexibility

Is Chinese culture nearly unique in the world to have a system of name-selection which is almost infinitely variable where few people, including famous people, will ever be encountered with the same name? I.e. Muhammeds amount in ME culture; Johns, Williams, etc etc in the West; Japanese names are not as flexible as Chinese names, right? (e.g. Miko, Keiko, at least for females seem to be fixed). I hope my question is worded clearly. Thanks --Dpr 07:44, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Probably not. Many Native American cultures also seem to have names that are unique per individual. --Yuje 08:54, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Good point. Nonetheless, I think it's fair to say that numerically, among cultures of the world, this practice is rare. Thanks. --Dpr 04:39, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Not really.

1. Though there is a large amount of Chinese characters out there, true, but modern Chinese given names often use a limited range of characters with inherent good meaning with them, and obsolete characters are seldom put into use. Furthermore there are some character combinations very popular for names in each region of China, and there indeed are people who have exact the same surname+given name with important figures.
2. The same phenomenon can also be seen in Japan, that is, some character combinations are just very popular among people when it comes to naming their babies. But with the majority of Japanese surname have 2 characters, people with exact the same full name are less in Japan. -- G.S.K.Lee 06:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I guess it should be highlighted that the practice is common in East Asia (including also Vietnamese if I'm not mistaken), and among some indigenous cultures, but among Latin Americans, North Americans, Eastern and Western Europeans (including Russia), Australia, and (I'm pretty sure), the Middle East-Southwest Asia, it's historically almost unheard of to create your own name for your child. Yes, it is a growing trend today in the West, admittedly. Which side of the divide does Africa fall on mostly? --Dpr 09:17, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Vietnamese and Koreans, for the most part, actually have Chinese names, from the surnames to the way that personal names are given. Japan is much more similar to the West in that there seems to be a commonly-used set of personal names, and a near undeterminable number of surnames in existence. 12:13, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

"Japan is much more similar to the West in that there seems to be a commonly-used set of personal names."

I disagree with this part. It is not that much. -- G.S.K.Lee 03:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Japan is much stricter with naming than the West: they have an officially-approved list of names. Read this: Jinmeiyo_kanji. --wkerney 1:27, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I think there are several issues here. With two character generational names it is much more unlikely you will get two people with the same name. But this isn't just applicable to the Chinese. When you have 3 parts of your name you will have far less coincidence. There might be a lot of William Gates but there are far fewer William Henry Gateses. I used this example to illustrate another fact. Unlike a number of culture, the Americans for example, the Chinese don't give their children the same names as them (however it isn't that common among the English either except perhaps among the royalty). Finally another reason why you find far fewer coincidences of Chinese names in the English speaking world is because of romanisation differences. Until recently, most romanisation has been fairly variable. E.g. uou have Li, Lee etc for the surname. Frequently these are the same character but the romanisation is different. You might have a Li Mei Hui and a Lee May Hooi. These could both be the same name when written and spoken in Mandarin or whatever but they will obviously not appear the same if you do a search in English. Nil Einne 19:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

>> In Hokkien- or Cantonese-speaking areas, a nickname will often consist of the diminutive Ah (阿), followed by part of the given name (usually the last character).

I don't think this is confined to Hokkien or Cantonese speaking areas only. I'm pretty sure it's the case all over China

Corrected. There are countless ahs all over China. :D--Huaiwei 01:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

"Ah" is more common in the south. much less so in the north. add "xiao" or repetition is more common in the north. 128.147.38.10 15:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The prefix 阿 is not a diminutive constructor, but the opposite, when you consider the etymology. So the prefix 阿 in 阿明 is in a sense similar to the 老 in 老王. While 小 can be attached to either the family name or (part of) the given name (小王, 小明), 老 is more often used with family names and 阿 more often with given names. Y. R. Chao discusses the prefixes 阿, 老, and 小 on pp. 216–7 in A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, and notes that

"In Cantonese the prefix ah- is used with monosyllabic surnames with the same effect as prefixing 老 lao-, as 亞王 Ah^* Woang = Mandarin 老王 Lao Wang."

Footnote *: "The character 阿 commonly used in Mandarin and Wu-dialect texts for this prefix is pronounced o in Cantonese. The usual character for this prefix in Cantonese texts is 亞, which would be yah in Mandarin, as in 亞細亞 'Asia'."

I hope this helps clarify things a little. — Ydw (talk) 16:29, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that the characters 仔 and 子 may also be used as suffixes to form diminutive nicknames, albeit apparently less commonly used than 小, but I have not done research on this. Ydw (talk) 03:08, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

阿 is also an official middle name

Mention that at least in Taiwan, 阿 can be found as the middle name on ID cards, not just a nickname. Mainly older people though. --User:Jidanni 2006-07-09

Yao Ming examples

I've attempted to clarify the name-order discussion in the first couple of paragraphs by using further examples based on Yao Ming's name, but I've resorted to giving him the fictional Western "first" name Fred in the two final examples. I'm not sure of the easiest way to indicate that he's not really named Fred (a peril of mixing real and fictitious examples, I guess).

If I've actually misunderstood and the examples are incorrect, I invite corrections. —Eric S. Smith 15:35, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Western names

How do the Chinese figure out their "Western" name? Choice or something else? I've never been able to figure this out and the article doesn't explain it. -RomeW

Normally people just simply choose the one they like from those common names flying around, etc. John, Paul, Anna, blah-blah, whatever, and make it their own names. In rare instances, for example, me, you can find people with unique names, with each name probably has its own story behind. -- G.S.K.Lee 21:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

People usaully older people don't choose a western name at all, though some chose a name that is easy for them to pronounce. --Johanna451940 01:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I live in Taiwan and I am jealous of the freedom that the younger Taiwanese have in chosing their Western name. It can be practically anything. In my wife's company, I know a guy named Water, a guy named Cash, and a guy who uses the name of a video game character. ---Taiwan On 08:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.200.157.177 (talk)

multiple names

i want to know more about how chinese have multiple names. theyll have a name they were born with. then they give themselves a name. their mum gives them a name. their dad gives them a name. they have honourary names, style name, courtesy name, Posthumous name, actual name, and like 5 different names by the time they die.

As far as I know, when one is born, his/her father gives him/her a given name. Along with the family name, that's his/her name. When he reaches 20 years old (educated men only), or when she is getting married (educated only, rare), he/she gives himself/herself a name, called Zi or Biaozi, which often has some meanting related to his/her given name. Not like in a western country people call each other's firsname a lot, Chinese people do not do that in most case, except really close friends or family member. Instead, they can use just the Zi to call eath other. And to use Zi, instead of to use the given name, is a way to pay repection. In addition, some people (really educted ones) give themselves some Hao, like The Resident of Blahblah (usually the name of his study room, like Wind Whisper Room), or The Lord of Rings(just kidding). One may have a lot of Hao, while most people do not have any Hao. After a man died, only if he was an emperor or someone with a lot of power, he might get a Yihao, usually describing his whole life, like The King of Weakness, or The Emperor of Conquer.

In summary, Family name and given name, Zi for educated ones, Hao for people who want to show off, and Yihao for died emperors. Not too many.

Today, most Chinese have only the family name and given name, and more and more people in big cities are having westernized names. Of course, writers always have pennames, but that's a different story.--Mongol 20:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Fred Yao Ming

I've never known anyone have a name like that: Westernized name, family name, then given name. I am only aware of usages of Ming Yao, Fred Yao, Fred Ming Yao, Ming Fred Yao, or Yao Ming. Can anyone give an example of a name like Fred Yao Ming? Otherwise, probably I will have that line changed. --Mongol 20:20, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I got the answer: this is a Hong Kong usage.--Mongol 20:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Westernized name, family name, the given name, is quite common in Singapore. The only thing is that this full structure seldom used when addressing someone casually. For example, it is common for someone to register his name as "John Lim Guan Heng", when "John" is the westernized name, "Lim" is the surname (family name), and "Guan Heng" is the given name. However, the casual and popular way to call out to this person is by using "John" or "John Lim", rather than "John Lim Guan Heng". This is similar to how in the west people would usually use "Hello, John" instead of "Hello, John Edward Smith". However, Surname - Given Name - Westernized name usage is very rare in Singapore. So I will edit that part in the main article. Atticuslai (talk) 06:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

He's not Henry...he's my brother

I note that the text reads "For instance, referring to Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as Hsien or Hsien Lee would be confusing as this could just as easily refer to his brother." How is this essenrially different from referring to (for example) Henry Jones as "Jones" when this could just as easily refer to his brothers, sisters, children, cousins, etc. ? HouseOfScandal 18:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the point is that Hsien or Hsien Lee is only half the given name which is actually Hsien Loong, and Hsien or Hsien Lee would only be used by somone not familiar with Chinese names. The difference is such a person would think Hsien is the given name and the Loong as a middle name. LDHan 19:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to determine a person's sex by their chinese name?

Are there names that are typically male or female or unisex? (I expect there are) Is there a list of such names available? — —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vaios (talk • contribs) 13:16, 3 November 2006

-Since Chinese given names are made up character by character, there are virtually unlimited combinations of names however, typically female names use\ certain characters that appears more feminine, and vice versa yet this is not always so, some very traditional families would give their daughters quite masculine names, hoping that their next child would be a boy. with the romanization or the pinyin, it is nearly impossible for foreigners to tell the difference between names — —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.71.100.177 (talk) 17:00, 15 February 2007

• In general it is not possible to determine a person's gender from his or her Chinese name. The following apparently feminine names are actually names of famous Chinese men: 梅蘭芳, 陳其美 (陳英士), 林毓蓉 (林彪). It is also common to find females with gender-neutral or even masculine names. In my own family, two distant relatives (a male and a female) actually have the same name by coincidence: the family name, their generation name, and their register names (which is of the 玉 radical group) are all identical.
  Perhaps only if the name contains feminine characters of the 女 radical group, such as 嬌娟妮姍娜婷, can one be more certain that the person is female. Note, however, that the characters 如 and 威, even though they belong to the 女 radical group, are used in both male and female names. — Ydw (talk) 23:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
  • 安 is another charcter in the 女 radical group that is gender neutral and used in male names (e.g., 李安, 王安, 陳履安) and female names. — Ydw (talk) 05:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

This page does not account for chinese middle name

The chinese (at least here in malaysia) order their name as: <family> <middle> <first>

For instance, my wife's chinese name is: "Lai Sin Ho"; 'Lai' is the family name, 'Sin' is her middle given name, and 'Ho' is her main given name.

I understand also that many chinese do NOT have middle name, but this is NOT always the case.

- That's a misunderstanding by those unfamiliar with asian culture. there is a vietnamese dude I know who does the same thing. In your wife's case, "Sin Ho" is the formal form of her first name. either the first or the second character, can be used as a pet name by the family, so those unfamiliar with their culture take it as a "main" first name. The family may also use some variations of this as a petname, like "Sin Sin", "Ah Sin", "Siu Sin", or otherwise "Ah Ho" etc. there are asians who consciously decide to use it as their main name, kinda akin to someone named William tells you to call them Bill, but in most circumstances, if you don't know that person well, it's considered disrespectful. 128.147.38.10 15:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Stereotype Name?

In Taiwan, the stereotype name equivalent to "John Smith" in English is 王小明(Wong, shao-ming(?)). This article does not introduce any one of them (in any Chinese region), while the article Japanese Name does. timdream 23:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

That basically is the only "John Smith" name Chinese people use. It's kinda like "Tom, Dick, and Harry". 王小明 (It's actually: Wong Xiao-Ming) is the simplest name, usually used for naming characters in children's schoolbooks, nothing too hard for the kids to read. --Johanna451940 01:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

王小明 should be "Wang Xiaoming". LDHan 10:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It should be Wong Xiaoming. It's only "wang" if its of Cantonese spelling, I think. 01:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)Hyung-Qing

"Wong" is Cantonese for 黄 (Huang). Wang is right. 130.126.75.181 (talk) 06:03, 28 March 2008 (UTC)cecikierk

Chinese_name#Alternative_names : need review !

Hello, I rewritted this section : please review need ! 220.135.4.212 (talk) 13:45, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

"Era name" example

Under "Era name," the article reads:

The era name can sometimes be use in ways which refer to the monarch himself, and not to the period (Ex: the Emperor Meiji, having ruled during the Meiji era (Enlightened rule), he is now known as Emperor Meiji).

The Emperor Meiji was Japanese so I'm deleting the example. Someone might want to add a legitimate example for Chinese. --Hakanai (talk) 20:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

3 variations

The article currently reads: There are 3 variations: Western name, surname, and Chinese given name, in that order ("Fred Yao Ming"). Western name, Chinese given name, and surname ("Fred Ming Yao"). Or surname, Chinese given name, followed by Western name ("Yao Ming Fred"). Is this accurate? I fail to understand the reasoning behind the third variation, which seems a rather awkward "adapation" to Western naming conventions. It seems rather a maladaption (a mistake), as it neglects the name inversion which the major point of the exercise in the first place--unless the intent of the person is to become known as "Mr. Fred". Robert K S (talk) 20:48, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Given names of siblings

The article currently states:

Depending on region and family, female children may not be entered into the family tree, and thus will not be given a generation name. A frequent naming pattern for female offspring in this case could share the same last character in the given name while varying the first character (in place of the generation name). A well known example of such system can be found from the names of the main four sisters in the novel "A Dream of Red Mansions" 红楼梦, where they were named 元春 (yuan chun), 迎春 (yin chun), 探春 (tan chun), and 惜春 (xi chun).

This is unreferenced, and in my experience the more common naming scheme is actually the opposite—siblings share the first character of a given name, not the second. (Some famous examples off the cuff: Jung Chang, whose original name was Zhang Erhong (in pinyin), had four siblings whose names were all Er__；　Mao Zedong's siblings were all Ze__.) Can we remove, or at least downplay, the unsourced bit quoted above, and find a source for this more common naming pattern and mention it? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 11:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Confusing examples

I found the examples in, for example, the diaspora section, to be confusing. I can indentify the Western elements of the names in an example, but, not understanding Chinese, cannot tell which other name elements are meant to be surnames and which given names. The examples are therefore confusing and unhelpful to me. Would it be a reasonable reform for this article to adopt a uniform convention of encoding the functions of name elements by different typefaces, such as boldface or italics? The convention could be explained at the top of the article. This is functionally not unlike the European convention of writing surnames in addresses in all capitals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.86.92.198 (talk) 18:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a problem. Each of the examples there seems to have extensive explanation and discussion. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

How about this: "...it is equally acceptable for Western names to appear before or after the Chinese given name, thus Tan Keng Yam Tony may also be written as Tony Tan Keng Yam...". I can recognize "Tony" as a Western name. But "Tan", "Keng", and "Yam" I can't identify as given names or surnames. The sentence seems to say that "Yam" is the given name in the first example and that "Tan" is the given name in the second example. I would be surer that this is a contradiction if I could sort the three Chinese name elements into given names or surnames. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.184.95.117 (talk) 04:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

In any case, in one example "Tony" is clearly before the entire Chinese name and in the other example "Tony" is clearly after it, so there's no contradiction. And the following sentence (General usage tend to prefer placing the Western name first as this permits the Western and Chinese name order to be preserved simultaneously (ex. "Tony Tan" and "Tan Keng Yam" can be combined to "Tony Tan Keng Yam")) makes it obvious that "Tan" is the family name. I will also add a hyphen in the given name. (Actually, his romanized name appears to be written most commonly in non-hyphenated form.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 11:11, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

If the rule is that "...it is equally acceptable for Western names to appear before or after the entire Chinese name...", then why isn't it stated that way? The rule as given would allow "Tan Tony Keng Yam", if your identification of the name elements is correct, which I have to take your word for. You say that it is obvious that "Tan" is the family name because it is both preceded by "Tony" in one example and followed by "Tony" in the other. The same can be said for "Keng" and "Yam"; so it's not really obvious unless you already know what looks like a family name and what looks like a given name. I think that the article would be improved by examples that do not need to be decoded, especially when prior knowledge of Chinese is required for that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.86.92.198 (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Mr.+ Given name

I think the statement "Mr.+Given name is never used" is totally wrong. Since Mr. is translated as 先生, and 先生 has a longer history and is actually have different meaning. Given name + 先生 is in fact very common in practice, moreover Given name + salutary tile(先生, comrade, 师傅, etc.) is a friendly way to call people. --刻意(Kèyì) 10:36, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

No one made that statement anywhere. rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)