Chinese Names From Poems: The Book of Songs and Chuci

A popular Chinese naming slogan runs 女诗经，男楚辞 (nǚ Shījīng, nán Chǔcí): "girls from the Book of Songs, boys from the Chuci". Naming apps are named after it. Whatever you make of the split between boys and girls, the habit behind it is real: for more than two thousand years, parents and scholars have gone looking in the two oldest Chinese poetry collections for a pair of characters that carries a whole line of poetry with it.

This guide shows how that works, with real people whose names came from these books and the exact lines behind them. Every line below is quoted from the received text as printed on Chinese Wikisource.

For how a given name fits into the rest of a Chinese name, see How Chinese Names Work.

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The two books

The 《诗经》 (Shījīng), the Book of Songs or Classic of Poetry, is a collection of 305 poems from roughly the 11th to the 7th centuries BC: folk songs, court odes and temple hymns. It became one of the Confucian classics, so every educated person once knew it by heart.

The 《楚辞》 (Chǔcí), the Songs of Chu, is a later anthology from the southern state of Chu, centred on 屈原 (Qū Yuán) and his long poem 《离骚》 (Lí Sāo). Where the Book of Songs is rustic and compact, the Chuci is lush and visionary, full of fragrant plants, gods and journeys through the sky.

A name taken from either book works like a quotation. Anyone who knows the poem hears the whole line behind the two characters.

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Real names from the Book of Songs

林徽因: from 徽音, "a fine renown"

The architect and poet 林徽因 (Lín Huīyīn) was originally named 林徽音. Chinese Wikipedia traces the name to the ode 《大雅·思齐》 (Dà Yǎ · Sī Qí), which praises the mothers of the Zhou royal house:

大姒嗣徽音，则百斯男。 Tàisì sì huīyīn, zé bǎi sī nán. "Tai Si carried on their fine renown, and so came a hundred sons."

徽音 means "fine sound", that is, a good name and reputation. She later changed 音 to 因 (yīn), according to Chinese Wikipedia to avoid being confused with a male writer of the day called 林微音. Her husband was the architect Liang Sicheng, whose family appears in our generation names guide.

琼瑶: a pen name from "Quince"

The novelist best known as 琼瑶 (Qióng Yáo), real name 陈喆 (Chén Zhé), took her pen name from the short poem 《卫风·木瓜》 (Wèi Fēng · Mù Guā). Its second stanza reads:

投我以木桃，报之以琼瑶。匪报也，永以为好也。 Tóu wǒ yǐ mù táo, bào zhī yǐ qióng yáo. Fěi bào yě, yǒng yǐ wéi hǎo yě. "You tossed me a mutao fruit; I gave you fine jade in return. Not as repayment, but so we would be close forever."

琼瑶 is fine jade, the precious gift returned for a simple one. Each of the poem's three stanzas swaps in a different fruit and a different jade; the 琼瑶 stanza is the second.

屠呦呦: from the cry of the deer

The pharmacologist 屠呦呦 (Tú Yōuyōu), who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work on artemisinin, was named by her father from the ode 《小雅·鹿鸣》 (Xiǎo Yǎ · Lù Míng), "The Deer Cry". 呦呦 is the sound of a deer calling. Global People (环球人物), in a profile republished by People's Daily, and a CCTV.com piece republished on The Paper both quote the same couplet from the poem's second stanza:

呦呦鹿鸣，食野之蒿。我有嘉宾，德音孔昭。 Yōu yōu lù míng, shí yě zhī hāo. Wǒ yǒu jiā bīn, dé yīn kǒng zhāo. "Yoo-yoo, the deer cry, eating the wild hao. I have fine guests, and their good name shines bright."

The poem's first stanza opens the same way but with a different plant, 食野之苹. Both sources quote the 蒿 stanza, and Global People spells out why it fits: 蒿 (hāo) is artemisia, and her Nobel-winning drug came from 青蒿 (qīnghāo), sweet wormwood. Her name had pointed at her life's work since she was born in 1930.

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More lines parents draw from the Book of Songs

These lines are among the most quoted in the collection, and the characters in them are natural name material.

《周南·桃夭》 (Zhōu Nán · Táo Yāo), a wedding song:

桃之夭夭，灼灼其华。 Táo zhī yāo yāo, zhuó zhuó qí huā. "The peach tree is young and lush; blazing bright are its blossoms."

The characters 灼 (zhuó, blazing) and 华 (huá, flower, splendour) make an obvious pair for a girl's name.

《秦风·蒹葭》 (Qín Fēng · Jiān Jiā), a poem of longing:

蒹葭苍苍，白露为霜。所谓伊人，在水一方。 Jiān jiā cāng cāng, bái lù wéi shuāng. Suǒ wèi yī rén, zài shuǐ yī fāng. "The reeds are deep green; the white dew has turned to frost. The one I long for is somewhere beyond the water."

伊人 (yīrén), "that person", and 白露 (báilù), "white dew", come from this line. White Dew and Frost's Descent are both among the 24 solar terms; for how a solar term became a drama heroine's nickname, see our First Frost 霜降 explainer.

《郑风·子衿》 (Zhèng Fēng · Zǐ Jīn):

青青子衿，悠悠我心。 Qīng qīng zǐ jīn, yōu yōu wǒ xīn. "Blue-green is your collar; long, long is my longing."

子衿 (zǐjīn), "your collar", is one of the best-known two-character phrases in the whole book.

《卫风·淇奥》 (Wèi Fēng · Qí Yù), praising a cultivated gentleman:

有匪君子，如切如磋，如琢如磨。 Yǒu fěi jūnzǐ, rú qiē rú cuō, rú zhuó rú mó. "There is an accomplished gentleman, as if cut and filed, as if carved and polished."

Here 匪 is read fěi and means "accomplished" (it stands for 斐). The line gave Chinese the verb 切磋 (qiēcuō), to compare notes and sharpen each other, and the characters 琢 (zhuó) and 磨 (mó) both imply patient self-improvement.

The Book of Songs on screen

Screenwriters use the same quarry. The leads of Key to the Phoenix Heart are 萧无衣 and 谢嘉鱼, and 无衣 is the refrain of the war song 《秦风·无衣》:

岂曰无衣？与子同袍。 Qǐ yuē wú yī? Yǔ zǐ tóng páo. "Who says you have no robe? I will share my cloak with you."

while 嘉鱼 opens the banquet ode 《小雅·南有嘉鱼》: 南有嘉鱼 (nán yǒu jiā yú), "in the south there are fine fish". Our Key to the Phoenix Heart name explainer reads both names in full.

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Names from the Chuci

The Chuci starts, in a sense, with a naming ceremony. Near the opening of the 《离骚》, Qu Yuan describes how his father named him:

皇览揆余初度兮，肇锡余以嘉名。名余曰正则兮，字余曰灵均。 Huáng lǎn kuí yú chū dù xī, zhào cì yú yǐ jiā míng. Míng yú yuē Zhèngzé xī, zì yú yuē Língjūn. "My father surveyed the hour of my birth, and first bestowed fine names on me. He named me Zhengze, 'Correct Rule', and styled me Lingjun, 'Spirit Balance'."

The pair 名 and 字 in that line are exactly the given name and courtesy name that every educated man once had. History records him as 屈平, courtesy name 原; in his poem he gives his names in this more elevated form. For how courtesy names work, see Chinese Courtesy Names (字) and Art Names (号) Explained.

The rest of the Li Sao is just as rich in name material, especially the fragrant plants Qu Yuan wears as signs of his integrity:

扈江离与辟芷兮，纫秋兰以为佩。 Hù jiānglí yǔ pì zhǐ xī, rèn qiūlán yǐ wéi pèi. "I wrapped myself in river lovage and angelica, and threaded autumn orchids to wear at my waist."

芷 (zhǐ, angelica) and 兰 (lán, orchid) became two of the classic characters of a name drawn from the Chuci.

朝饮木兰之坠露兮，夕餐秋菊之落英。 Zhāo yǐn mùlán zhī zhuì lù xī, xī cān qiūjú zhī luò yīng. "In the morning I drank dew dropping from the magnolia; at evening I ate the fallen petals of autumn chrysanthemums."

落英 (luòyīng), fallen petals, is the same phrase that appears centuries later in Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Spring (落英缤纷).

And the most quoted line of all:

路曼曼其修远兮，吾将上下而求索。 Lù mànmàn qí xiūyuǎn xī, wú jiāng shàngxià ér qiúsuǒ. "The road is long and stretches far; I will search high and low."

Modern editions often print 曼曼 as 漫漫. The line supplies 修远 (xiūyuǎn), "long and far", and 求索 (qiúsuǒ), "to seek", both of which work as names for someone meant to keep searching.

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How to use a classical line as a name

The method is simple, and it is the one Lin Huiyin's and Tu Youyou's families used:

1. Choose a line you love, not just two pretty characters. Educated Chinese readers will recognise the source and read the whole line into the name. A name from a lament carries the lament with it.
2. Take two characters, adjacent or not, that make sense together: 徽音, 琼瑶, 呦呦, 子衿, 修远.
3. Read it after the surname, aloud. Check the tones and listen for unlucky homophones.
4. Check that it is not too obscure. A character nobody can type is a burden on official forms.

The same approach works with four-character idioms, which often come from the same classics: see Chinese Idiom Names: Given Names Drawn From Chengyu. If the name is for yourself rather than a child, read How to Choose a Chinese Name for Yourself first. And for how drama writers hide poetry in character names, see our C-drama character names guide and the First Frost character names breakdown.