How Chinese Names Work: Surname, Generation and Given Name

A Chinese name looks short to English speakers: 毛泽东, three characters; 李白, two. But a traditional Chinese name is a small system with moving parts. There is a family name that comes first, a given name that may carry a character shared with every cousin of the same generation, and, for most of Chinese history, a whole second layer of names that adults used instead of the one on the birth record.

This guide takes a name apart piece by piece. Each piece has its own deeper explainer in this series, linked as we go.

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The order: family name first

A Chinese name puts the 姓 (xìng), the family name, first and the 名 (míng), the given name, after it. In 毛泽东 (Máo Zédōng), 毛 is the family name and 泽东 is the given name. In 李白 (Lǐ Bái), 李 is the family name and 白 is the given name.

English-language publications usually keep that order rather than flipping it, which is why we say "Mao Zedong" and not "Zedong Mao". Wikipedia's article on Chinese names notes this as the standard practice, and contrasts it with Japanese names, which are usually reversed in English.

In mainland pinyin the given name is written as one word: Mao Zedong, not Mao Ze Dong or Mao Ze-dong. Taiwan, Hong Kong and older Western sources often hyphenate in Wade-Giles or other systems, so the same kind of name appears as Kung Tsui-chang or Soong Ching-ling. The hyphen is a spelling convention, not a sign of a middle name.

There is no middle name in a Chinese name. When Chinese-American families register a child with an English first name and the Chinese given name in the middle slot, that is an adaptation to American forms, not a Chinese structure.

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The family name (姓)

China has a very large population and a very small pool of common surnames. According to the Ministry of Public Security's 2020 National Name Report (二〇二〇年全国姓名报告), reported by Xinhua on 9 February 2021, the five most common surnames, 王 (Wáng), 李 (Lǐ), 张 (Zhāng), 刘 (Liú) and 陈 (Chén), together cover 30.8% of the household-registered population. Wikipedia's Chinese name article gives the wider picture: over 6,000 surnames exist, but about a hundred account for more than 85% of people.

Most surnames are one character. A few are two: 欧阳 (Ōuyáng), 司马 (Sīmǎ) and 诸葛 (Zhūgě) are the best known, the last one because of the strategist 诸葛亮 (Zhūgě Liàng), whose family name is 诸葛 and whose given name is just 亮.

The classic list of surnames is the 百家姓 (Bǎijiāxìng), Hundred Family Surnames, a Song-dynasty primer that actually lists 504 of them. It opens 赵钱孙李 (Zhào Qián Sūn Lǐ), and that order is not about frequency. The Song scholar Wang Mingqing explained it as a list of ruling houses at the time: Zhao was the surname of the Song emperors, Qian of the kings of Wuyue, Sun of a Wuyue queen, and Li of the kings of Southern Tang.

One more thing that surprises Western readers: traditionally a married woman keeps her own surname.

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The given name (名)

The given name is where parents spend their effort. It is one or two characters, and each character is chosen for meaning, sound and how it sits after the surname.

Length has changed a lot over time. The Ministry of Public Security report counts full names, surname included: today more than 90% of people have a three-character full name (one surname character plus a two-character given name), and only 6.3% have a two-character full name. That share was only 7.6% in the 1960s and peaked at 27.6% in the 1990s before falling away. We explain that rise and fall, and the much older story of the Han dynasty ban on two-character names, in Why Some Chinese Names Have Only Two Characters.

Given names also date a person. Xinhua's summary of the same report lists 建国 (Jiànguó, "build the nation") and 建华 (Jiànhuá) as the names of the founding years of the People's Republic, 军 (Jūn) and 勇 (Yǒng) in the 1960s and 70s, 伟 (Wěi), 磊 (Lěi), 静 (Jìng) and 丽 (Lì) in the 1980s, and "literary" names such as 浩宇 (Hàoyǔ), 浩然 (Hàorán), 欣怡 (Xīnyí) and 梓涵 (Zǐhán) after 2000. In 2020 the most common name for newborn boys was 奕辰 (Yìchén) and for girls 一诺 (Yīnuò).

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The generation name (字辈)

In a traditional family, one of the two given-name characters was not the parents' choice at all. It came from a generation poem, and every brother and paternal cousin of the same generation shared it.

毛泽东 (Máo Zédōng) and his younger brothers 毛泽民 (Máo Zémín) and 毛泽覃 (Máo Zétán) all carry 泽 (zé). The architect 梁思成 (Liáng Sīchéng) and his brothers 梁思永 (Liáng Sīyǒng) and 梁思礼 (Liáng Sīlǐ) all carry 思 (sī). Neither family chose those characters for each child; the character told everyone which generation the child belonged to.

This system, called 字辈 (zìbèi), is still used by some lineages and is the reason many Chinese-American families have a shared character running through the names of cousins who have never met. The full story, including the Confucius family poem that has run for centuries, is in Chinese Generation Names (字辈) Explained.

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The names adults used: courtesy name (字) and art name (号)

Until the twentieth century, an educated man's given name was the one name his peers did not use. At adulthood he received a 字 (zì), a courtesy name, and that is what equals called him. Wikipedia's courtesy name article describes the given name as reserved for the man himself and his elders once he came of age.

So the poet we call 李白 was 字太白 (Tàibái) to his friends, and the strategist 诸葛亮 was 字孔明 (Kǒngmíng). Many writers also took a 号 (hào), an art name or self-chosen sobriquet: Su Shi's 东坡居士 (Dōngpō Jūshì), "the Householder of the Eastern Slope", came from the farm he worked during his exile in Huangzhou.

Courtesy names were usually built to echo the given name. We take that system apart, with Li Bai, Zhuge Liang, Yue Fei and Mao Zedong as examples, in Chinese Courtesy Names (字) and Art Names (号) Explained.

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Milk names (小名)

Before the formal name, many children get a 小名 (xiǎomíng) or 乳名 (rǔmíng), a "milk name" used by family. Wikipedia's Chinese name article notes these often use the diminutive 小 (xiǎo) or a doubled character, and may be dropped later or kept as a family nickname. A child formally named 李浩然 might be 小浩 or 浩浩 at home for life.

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Names you could not say: naming taboo (避讳)

Chinese names also carried rules about who could say them. Under 避讳 (bìhuì), the naming taboo, an emperor's personal name could not be written or spoken by his subjects, and families avoided the names of their own ancestors.

The effects reached into mythology. The moon goddess was originally 姮娥 (Héng'é); because Emperor Wen of Han was named 刘恒 (Liú Héng), her name was changed to the now-familiar 嫦娥 (Cháng'é). Chinese Wikipedia's article on 避讳 and English Wikipedia's Heng-O article both record the change. Under the Qing, the Kangxi Emperor's personal name was 玄烨 (Xuányè), so the Forbidden City's 玄武门 (Xuánwǔ Mén) was renamed 神武门 (Shénwǔ Mén), the name it still carries.

Family taboo could be just as strict. The Tang poet 李贺 (Lǐ Hè) was attacked by rivals who said he should not sit the imperial jinshi examination, because his father's name, 晋肃 (Jìnsù), sounded like 进士 (jìnshì), the degree he would be sitting for. His friend Han Yu wrote a famous essay, 《讳辩》 (Huì Biàn), "On the Taboo", attacking the reasoning.

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Putting it together

A traditional scholar's full set of names might look like this:

Layer	Chinese	Who uses it
Family name	姓 xìng	Everyone, always first
Given name	名 míng	The person, parents, elders
Generation character	字辈 zìbèi	Fixed by the family poem
Milk name	小名 xiǎomíng	Family, in childhood
Courtesy name	字 zì	Peers, from adulthood
Art name	号 hào	Self-chosen or given by admirers

Modern names in mainland China are mostly just the first two rows. But every layer is still visible in literature, in costume dramas, and in the names people choose.

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Where names come from

Parents who choose names carefully often reach for classical sources. Some of the most famous modern names come straight from the Book of Songs: the architect Lin Huiyin was originally 林徽音, from a line in the poem 思齐. See Chinese Names From Poems: The Book of Songs and Chuci. Others are built from four-character idioms, as in Chinese Idiom Names: Given Names Drawn From Chengyu. If you are choosing a Chinese name for yourself, How to Choose a Chinese Name for Yourself covers the rules native speakers notice.

And if you came here from a drama: Chinese screenwriters use every one of these layers. Our guide to C-drama character names shows how, and the First Frost character names and Pursuit of Jade names breakdowns go name by name.

A fitting idiom to end on is 名副其实 (míng fù qí shí): the name matching the reality. Every layer of a Chinese name is, in some way, a bet that it will.