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A modern Chinese usually has (1) a surname ("family name") or xìng 姓 and (2) a given name ("first name" or "Christian name"), or míng 名 (or míngzi 名字), always in that order. Thus Dèng Xiăopíng is Mr. Dèng with the personal name Xiăopíng the same way John Jones is Mr. Jones with the personal name John.
Some Chinese writers in English reverse the order and put the family name last in order to conform to English usage: Xiaoping Deng. This confuses things when the surname and given name are not distinctive enough to be able to be sure which is which. For example, since both Chiao and Chien are possible spellings of Chinese surnames, it took me some years before I knew whether anthropologist Chiao Chien (Pinyin: Qiáo Jiàn) was Dr. Chiao or Dr. Chien. It didn't help that I saw it in both orders. In Europe, where surnames are often written in capital letters, it is less of a problem: CHIAO Chien. The surname is clearly Chiao.
Nearly always the family name (surname) is one-syllable long. The only common modern surnames that are two-syllables long are Ōuyáng and Sīmă.
Usually (but not always) the given name is two syllables long, and sometimes a group of siblings or even cousins will share the first (or sometimes second) syllable of their given names. Dèng Xiăopíng, Dèng Liáopíng, and Dèng Guópíng, for example, would almost certainly be brothers or cousins.
In dynastic times naming was far more complex, and occasionally traces of the older system are still used. Chinese are far more likely than Americans to have pen names, nicknames, and so on, which have a respectability in China that they lack here.
For example:
Confucius' Chinese name was Kŏng Qiū 孔丘, where Kŏng 孔 was his family name and Qiū 丘 his personal name. In addition he had a zì 字, which was Zhòngní 仲尼, the name by which he is usually called in the Confucian canon. (The word zì means "written symbol," but in this special usage some sinologists translate it "style.")
Here is another example:
Chinese popular lore describes a group of five divinities referred to as the "Eight Immortals" (bā xiān 八仙). One of the most popular of these is popularly called Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓, or "Lǚ the Guest in the Cave." Lǚ is of course his family name. The Dòngbīn part is actually his zì (like the Zhòngní in Confucius' name), and the meaning of it clearly links him to the Taoist tradition of mountain hermits with which he is now associated.
His original name (míngzì, corresponding to Confucius' Qiū) is said to have been Yán 巖 (sometimes written 喦). That name would have been given to him by his parents early in life. (It actually means "crag," so even it points toward Taoism.)
Later in life, as he became ever more deeply involved with Taoism, he took a sobriquet (hào) of Chúnyáng 純楊, which means "Pure Yáng," And he also apparently sometimes referred to himself by the title Huídàorén 回道人 "the man who returns to the Way."
Finally, religious followers of Lǚ Dòngbīn today sometimes refer to him as "Patriarch Lǚ" (Lǚ zŭ 呂祖).
Here is a list of some of the kinds of names a Chinese male might have almost any time in Chinese history, although the details vary a good deal from time to time and place to place. The first four terms are the most important.
- xìng 姓 = surname (specifically a paternal surname)
- míng 名 or míngzì 名字 = given name
- zì 字 = "style," "epithet," or "marriage name," taken at marriage or coming of age (marked by a "capping" ceremony).
- hào 號 = "sobriquet," usually assumed by the person later in life, although sometimes conferred by friends. One can think of it as a rather formal nickname.
- bĭmíng 筆名 = "nom de plume" used by a writer
- biézì 別字 = "distinguishing appellation" given by friends to each other
- chuòhào 綽號 = "nickname"
- guānmíng 官名 = "official name" assumed by someone in government work.
- rŭmíng 乳名 = "milk name," given by parents
- shūmíng 書名 = "book name" (also called xuémíng 學名 = "study name"), given by the teacher when the child enters school
- shì 氏 = surname (apparently originally a maternal surname)
Chinese biographical dictionaries and other reference books tend to list people by their xìng and míngzi, but they are normally also quite meticulous in recording the zì of the people they write about, and various hào if they were much used. Some famous figures known to history by one or another zì or hào rather than by their míng.
Most Chinese today have only a surname (xìng) and a given name (míngzì), plus perhaps a nickname (chuòhào) or two. Occasionally members of the intelligentsia use a literary sobriquet (hào), continuing this old custom.
Fortunately, rarely is more than one form used when writing about famous Chinese in English, and in a context like this web site, a given individual is likely to be referred to only one way.
There are additional complications when it comes to emperors. A special hào was also taken by an emperor on accession to the throne and was used instead of his personal name, which was taboo. But, Chinese being Chinese, the emperor did not take a single hào, but a number:
- guóhào 國號 = "state sobriquet" was his state title
- niánhào 年號 = "year sobriquet" was the title of the year of his reign
- miàohào 廟號 = "temple sobriquet" was the temple name selected for an emperor after death by his successor.
Chinese women's names were far less complex. Women seldom participated in public life, schools, and the like, and normally bore a single name throughout their lives. Historical records often name women using only a surname —either a natal surname or the husband's surname— with no given name. Like men, they had informal nicknames used in everyday village life. Today, like Hispanic women, a Chinese woman usually adds her husband's surname to her original surname.
Thus Dù Guō Xiùmĕi, is Mrs. Dù née Guō, with the personal name of Xiùmĕi. In some cases, the husband's name is omitted. For wives of prominent men, the title fūrén 夫人, usually translated "madam," is appended to the husband's name: Jiăng Fūrén = Madam Jiăng.
Surnames do not seem to go back quite to the beginning of Chinese history, and it is still open to debate exactly what the two words for surname, xìng and shì, meant in the Bronze Age.
Traditionally personal names were selected with attention to their meanings, but also to the numbers of strokes and the elements that made up the characters. Fortune tellers were often consulted about this to make sure that a child's name accorded well with his moment of birth. Children were sometimes given one or more derogatory nicknames designed to make them seem unattractive so as to avoid their being targets of attack by envious or malicious spirits. These names were, of course, rarely used past childhood, since they were temporary expedients. It was perfectly possible to find small children named "dog-face" and the like. Little boys were sometimes given girls' names for the same reason, since girls were thought less susceptible than boys to spirit attack.
Within families names were rarely used, but rather kinship terms. Just as American children would not normally address their parents or grandparents by name, so a Chinese would address a sibling as "elder sister" or "third younger brother." Today names may be used for addressing family members junior than oneself, but it is by no means universal. I recall a petite high-school girl who addressed her younger brother quite unselfconsciously as "little brother" even though he was well over six feet tall and looked like a sumo wrestler. Chinese kinship terms are a study in themselves, since there are great many distinct terms that allow very precise indication of the relationships, and since there is some regional variation, and a difference between literary and colloquial usage.
Titles, in addition to names, were (and are) used. There are the usual Mr. and Mrs., but the ones you are most likely to encounter reading about traditional China are not those, but rather terms used for philosophers, gods, members of the bureaucracy or nobility, and so on.
"Master." Ancient Chinese philosophers are usually given the title zĭ 子, for example, which is sometimes translated "master." Thus you will read of Mèng zĭ 孟子, Xún zĭ 荀子, Zhuāng zĭ 莊子, and so on.
(Most editors regard the zĭ as a suffix, for obscure reasons, and spell it as part of the name: Mèngzĭ. This usage is endorsed by the official standard in the case of philosophers judged prominent, while for obscure philosophers the zĭ is supposed to be written as an uncapitalized, free-standing word, like other titles.)Confucius is usually called "Master Kŏng" or Kŏngzĭ. His English name is a Latinization of the slightly longer Chinese title Kŏng fūzĭ 孔夫子. The neo-Latin spelling was originally devised for a Latin translation of part of the Confucian canon called Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, Sive Scientia Sinensis, Latine Exposita, which appeared in Paris in 1687. In the late XIXth century some English writers tried to extend the spelling "-cius" as a general translation of zĭ. If they had extended this as a suffix for all philosophers we could have had Western names like Wittgenstein-cius, Hume-cius, and Russell-cius, but the idea never really caught on.
"King"/"Lord" Another title that tends to bleed into English is wáng 王, which means "king" and is sometimes left untranslated as a suffix to the name of a king. However the term was not always applied to an individual we would think of as a king, and in many cases the translation "king" can be a bit misleading, and something more generic like "lord" is to be preferred.
"Duke" The title gōng 公 in ancient texts is usually translated "duke", and the Confucian texts speak of the "Duke of Zhōu" or Zhōu Gōng 周公. In later times this gōng was conferred routinely on gods. (It also evolved into the term corresponding to "male" when referring to animals.) As with the title "king," it is often better to render this simply "lord" and let it go at that.
Today gōng is a postmortal title of highest possible honor. For example:
After his death, Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石 (Pinyin: Jiăng Jièshí) was given that title by the ROC government in Taiwan, to whom he was extraordinarily venerable. In Taiwan today references to the late president are therefore to Jiăng Gōng 蔣公. Jièshí was Jiăng's zì.
The "Kai-shek" used in English, by the way, is the Anglicization of a non-Mandarin reading of his zì. He hailed from Zhèjiāng Province, and I assume "Kai-shek" represents a Zhèjiāng local pronunciation of Jièshí.
Chiang Kai-shek's míng was Zhōngzhèng 中正, so the full post-mortal formula (in Taiwan) is Jiăng Gōng Zhōngzhèng 蔣公中正. If you really want to be reverential, you leave a blank space before the first character of the phrase. (The ultimate level of reverence, not merited even by Jiăng, is to force a new line before his name, so that the surname character is always the first character of the line.)
There is no obvious way to render this compactly into English. Perhaps something like "The much revered Chiang" would be closer than looking for a title as such.
(Chiang Kai-shek also had a school name, Zhìqīng 志清, but "of course" you wouldn't combine that with the title gōng!)
Buddhist monks and nuns discontinue use of their original names when ordained and assume new religious names. Typically the first syllable is shared by all disciples of a single master, and the second syllable is individual. Within the world of monastic Buddhism, surnames are not used. In interaction with the lay world, monks and nuns use the dummy surname Shì 釋, the first syllable of the Chinese transcription of the name of the Shakyamuni Buddha, Shìjiāmóuní 釋迦牟尼.
The commonest polite title both for priests and for nuns is "Dharma teacher" (făshī 法師), and the normal term of address is "teacher" (shīfù 師父). Both in polite reference and in direct address it is usual to use a cleric's religious name plus shī 師, "teacher."
The term "Dharma teacher" is often also used for and to Taoist adepts, despite the seeming Buddhist flavor of the term.
This was discussion inspired by a similar but far briefer one in
- Mary Lelia MAKRA
- 1961 The Hsiao Ching. New York: St. John's University Press. Pp. 43-44.
For a very useful and full discussion of Chinese naming practices with excellent reference to the names used by Chinese outside of China, the following work by a former member of the Immigration Department in Malaysia is extremely interesting.
- John JONES
- 1997 Chinese names: the traditions surrounding the use of Chinese surnames and personal names. Selagor Darul Ehsan: Pelanduk Publications. (ISBN: 967-978-619-6).
For an analysis of the names of famous people with an eye to developing names for modern Chinese children (or names to be adopted in Chinese by foreigners), the following is very informative:
- LUO Tong & CAO Jia Wei
- 2005 500 Famous Chinese names. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish.