Chinese Names

As is often the case, Chinese names usually consist of three or two Chinese characters. Family name, which usually has one Chinese character, comes first and then first name, which has one or two Chinese characters, follows.

It is true that we can not change our family name which is inherited from our ancestors. But first name can be created with different purposes in many ways. Firstly, as for first name, parents like to give their children names with good meanings, such as Jixiang(auspicious) and Meiyu(Beautiful jade). And my name is Yile (to live a happy life).Secondly, especially in our fathers’ generation, from their first names you can know which year and when they were born. Here are some examples. Jianguo(the foundation of the country) shows that he was born in 1949, which is the foundation of People’s Republic of China. If someone is called Wenge(the cultural revolution), we can also know that he was born in 1966, which is the start of the Cultural Revolution. From Chunnian(spring and the eve of spring festival), we can know this person was born in December. To be honest, this kind of first names is a little bit out of date and seldom exists in 21^st century. Thirdly, some parents will also pay much attention to Wuxing or Five Elements (metal, wood, water, fire and earth) in ancient Chinese philosophy and fortune-telling. In ancient Chinese philosophy, all phenomena in the universe are the products of the movement and mutation of five qualities: wood, metal, water, fire and earth, which will engender or restrain each other (picture1: how five elements interact with each other). According to the accurate date and moment of birth, people can know which element is lack in his life. In order to keep a balance, this element will appear in Chinese characters of his first name. For example, if someone is lack of Water, his name may be related with“waterish things”, such as river, flood, coldness, water and ocean. 

(picture 1)

Since how to give a first name is mentioned above, how to address a Chinese will follow. In China, if you are not familiar with each other, we won’t call his first name directly. In this situation, family name is preferred. Here is an example. If you have a male client whose name is Wang Liwei(Here Chinese name system is adopted. First name is behind family name.), you usually call him Wang Xiansheng (Xiansheng means Mr. in English. Nvshi means Ms.). But if you are peers, friends or classmates, first name is preferred to decrease the distance between you. Examples are as follows. Our four Chinese girls’ names are Yang Hongya, Yang Xi, Guo Ya and Liu Yile. You can call us Hongya, Yile, Xi and Ya.

Then the pronunciation of names will be involved. Different from intonation language, say, English, Chinese is a kind of tone language. There are mainly four tones (chart1) in Chinese pronunciation system.(http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17)

Tone(symbol)	Description
1st(-)	High and level.
2nd(/)	Starts medium in tone, then rises to the top.
3rd(∨)	Starts low, dips to the bottom, and then rises toward the top.
4th(\)	Starts at the top, and then falls sharp and strong to the bottom.

(chart 1)

Here is a diagram(diagram1)helping visualize the pitches of the four tones.

And generally speaking, there are many homophonic words, namely, words with the same sound expressing different meanings.

(diagram 1)

For instance, if tones are added to my name, my family name will be Líu, which is the second tone. But the same sound Líu can have many different meanings which usually have no relationship with each other, say, 流(flow) and留(stay). Take the family name of Jenifer and Shirley for example. Their family name is Yáng. From the pronunciation, it can be 阳(sunshine),羊(sheep),洋(ocean) and佯(pretend). Let’s add four tones to Guo Ya’s first name. From the first tone to the fourth tone, it can be Yā(meanings can be duck and press), Yá(teeth and sprout), Yǎ(elegance and mute), Yà(second). Since there are so many meanings for one sound, how can people understand each other? To distinguish which meaning it is, people frequently put the word into the current situation.

I hope from this blog you can have a better understanding of Chinese names.