Chinese Idiom Names: Given Names Drawn From Chengyu

Look at the most popular Chinese baby names of the last decade and you keep meeting fragments of famous phrases. The top name for newborn girls in 2020, according to the Ministry of Public Security's 2020 National Name Report, was 一诺 (Yīnuò): the first two characters of the idiom 一诺千金. One of the top boys' names of the 2010s was 浩然 (Hàorán), the 浩然 of Mencius's "flood-like qi".

That is the logic of an idiom name. A 成语 (chéngyǔ), a four-character set phrase, already carries a story and a value. Lift two characters out of it and the name keeps a quiet link to the whole phrase.

This guide shows how the method works and which idioms it works best with. Every idiom below links to its full page in our idiom dictionary.

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How a chengyu becomes a name

A chengyu has four characters; a modern given name has two. So the basic move is to choose two of the four. There are three common patterns.

1. Take the first two. The front half of many idioms is already a noun phrase that stands on its own.

• 一诺千金 (yī nuò qiān jīn): "one promise is worth a thousand in gold". 一诺 is "a single promise", a name about keeping one's word. The idiom comes from the early Han, when it was said of a man called Ji Bu that a hundred catties of gold were worth less than one promise from him.
• 鹏程万里 (péng chéng wàn lǐ): "the roc's journey of ten thousand li". 鹏程 is "the roc's journey", a wish for a soaring future. The image goes back to the giant bird at the start of the Zhuangzi.

2. Take the last two. Often the second half holds the goal.

• 宁静致远 (níng jìng zhì yuǎn): "calm brings you far". 致远, "reaching far", is the ambition; the idiom comes from Zhuge Liang's letter to his son: 非淡泊无以明志，非宁静无以致远, "without simplicity there is no clarity of purpose; without calm, no reaching far."
• 见贤思齐 (jiàn xián sī qí): from the Analects, 见贤思齐焉，见不贤而内自省也, "when you see a worthy person, think of equalling them; when you see an unworthy one, look inward." 思齐 means "to aspire to equal [the worthy]".
• 大智若愚 (dà zhì ruò yú): "great wisdom looks like foolishness". 若愚 sounds self-deprecating on its own, which is the point: a name for someone who will not need to show off.

3. Take one from each half. This gives more freedom, but the pair has to make sense by itself.

• 自强不息 (zì qiáng bù xī): from the Book of Changes, 天行健，君子以自强不息, "Heaven moves vigorously; the noble person strengthens himself without cease." 自强 alone already works as a name, and so does 强 combined with a character from another phrase.
• 厚积薄发 (hòu jī bó fā): Su Shi's advice to accumulate richly and release sparingly. 厚 (hòu), "thick, generous", is the character most often lifted from it.

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Not every famous phrase is a chengyu

Some of the most popular name sources are phrases from the classics rather than four-character idioms. 浩然, one of the top boys' names of the 2010s in the Ministry's decade tables, comes from 《孟子》 (Mencius), where Mencius says: 我善养吾浩然之气, "I am good at nourishing my flood-like qi." The phrase 浩然之气 means a vast moral energy, the courage of someone who knows he is in the right.

The line between "idiom name" and "classical name" is blurry because so many chengyu come from the classics in the first place. For names taken straight from poetry, see Chinese Names From Poems: The Book of Songs and Chuci.

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Idioms that make good name sources

These idioms are positive, well known and easy to split. For each we give the characters most naturally used in a name.

Idiom	Meaning	Name characters
海纳百川 (hǎi nà bǎi chuān)	The sea takes in a hundred rivers: an open, generous mind	纳川, 海川
虚怀若谷 (xū huái ruò gǔ)	A heart open like a valley: humility	怀谷, 若谷
青出于蓝 (qīng chū yú lán)	Blue dye comes from the indigo plant but is bluer: the student surpasses the teacher	青蓝
温故知新 (wēn gù zhī xīn)	Review the old to understand the new	知新
鸿鹄之志 (hóng hú zhī zhì)	The ambition of the great swan	鸿志
高瞻远瞩 (gāo zhān yuǎn zhǔ)	Looking far from high ground: vision	高瞻, 远瞩
冰清玉洁 (bīng qīng yù jié)	Clear as ice, pure as jade: integrity	清玉, 玉洁
前程似锦 (qián chéng sì jǐn)	A future like brocade	锦程
风华正茂 (fēng huá zhèng mào)	Talent and bearing in full bloom	风华
大器晚成 (dà qì wǎn chéng)	A great vessel takes long to complete	大器

A few of these characters are among the most fashionable in China right now. The Ministry of Public Security's 2020 list of the 50 most-used characters in newborns' names includes 锦 (jǐn, brocade), 博 (bó, broad), 浩 (hào, vast) and 诺 (nuò, promise), and each has a phrase behind it. 锦 is the brocade of 前程似锦; 博 is the 博 of 博学多才 (bó xué duō cái), broad learning and many talents; 诺 is the promise of 一诺千金; 浩 is the 浩 of Mencius's 浩然之气.

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Idioms to avoid

The trap with idiom names is that the story comes along with the characters. Some famous idioms sound positive but have an awkward back-story, and some characters are fine alone but form an unfortunate idiom when paired.

• Stories of hardship. 卧薪尝胆 (wò xīn cháng dǎn), "sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall", is admired as perseverance, but it is the story of a defeated king nursing revenge. A child named 尝胆 would carry that bitterness.
• Stories that end badly. 鸿鹄之志 is the boast of Chen Sheng, who raised the first rebellion against the Qin and was dead within months. Most parents use 鸿 and 志 anyway, because the phrase is now purely aspirational, but it is worth knowing.
• Names that complete an idiom by accident. A given name that turns the surname into the first half of a known phrase gets noticed instantly. If the surname plus the name read as a chengyu, read the whole chengyu before deciding.
• Idioms that are compliments, not wishes. 一鸣惊人 (yī míng jīng rén), "one cry that startles everyone", describes a sudden success after long silence. As a name, 惊人 ("startling people") just sounds odd.

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Why this works

A two-character name has room for very little. Borrowing from an idiom lets two characters carry four, plus the story behind them, the same way a name from the Book of Songs carries its whole line. It is also why so many Chinese names are hard to translate: 一诺 is not just "one promise", it is a promise worth a thousand in gold.

The idea goes back a long way. Courtesy names, the second names every educated man once had, were sometimes built on classical images in the same way: the general Yue Fei's courtesy name 鹏举, "the roc rises", uses the same bird as 鹏程万里. See Chinese Courtesy Names (字) and Art Names (号) Explained.

For the name as a whole, start with How Chinese Names Work. If you are choosing a name for yourself, read How to Choose a Chinese Name for Yourself. And for names that writers build into their characters, see our C-drama character names guide and the Pursuit of Jade name breakdown, whose heroine's name ends in the 玉, jade, of the drama's title.

The idiom that names the goal is 名副其实 (míng fù qí shí): a name that matches the reality.