These days, besides naming traditions that have been passed down through generations, younger parents look to diverse sources for inspiration, from ancient literature to popular culture. Popular names often mirror the values of the era in which they were chosen. Every name has its unique feature and special meaning. Parents put their wish for their kids in the name. That’s why you can find many children with 4 characters in their name.įor most Chinese, children’s names always include characters like beauty, hope, talent, or something similar.

The new trend is combining parents’ family names to create a new family name for their children. Nowadays many young Chinese don’t have a generic name. For this reason, it is possible to know the relationships between the family relatives by just looking at their names. The generation names are usually given by the forefathers, who chose them from a poem or found their own and put them in the genealogy for their descendants to use. For example, Mao Zedong has two brothers: Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan. The first part is the generic name that is shared by all members of a generation, and the last character is given to the person. Traditionally, Chinese given names are structured by a two-character pattern. The family names are normally one character, but some family names may have two characters like Sima, Ouyang, and Shangguan. But the courtesy name custom was abolished during the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and is no longer done.įor a Chinese name, normally there are 2 to 6 characters, with the most common names having 2 or 3 characters. It is polite to call other people by his or her courtesy name rather than the given name. One also may adopt a courtesy name by himself. It could be given either by the parents or by a teacher.

It is a symbol of adulthood and marriage for the female. Another name is called zi (courtesy name), given at the age of 20 for males and 15 for females. Traditionally, Chinese people have at least two names, the ming (given name), given by the parents or grandparents at the time of birth.

Make a chinese name