Chinese Names
2 min readPersonal names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western cultures.Most noticeably,a Chinese name is written with the family name first and the given name next,therefore”John-Paul Smith”as a Chinese name would be”Smith John-Paul”.Chinese people commonly address each other with full names instead of given names(especially for names consisting of two characters in total).Family names are never used alone without any salutation.For instance,the basketball player Yao Ming should be formally addressed as”Mr.Yao”,not”Mr.Ming”,and informally addressed as”Yao Ming” instead of”Yao”or”Ming”.
Some Chinese people who emigrate to,or do business with.Western countries sometimes adopt a Westernized name by simply reversing the”surname-given-name”order to”given- name-surname”(“Ming Yao”,to follow the previous example),or with a Western first name together with their surname,which is then written in the usual Western order with the surname last(“Fred Yao”).Some Chinese people sometimes take a combined name.There are two man variations:Western name,surname,and Chinese given name,in that order(“Fred Yao Ming”)or surname,Chinese given name,followed by Western name(“Yao Ming Fred”).
Traditional naming schemes often follow a pattern of using generation names as part of a two-character given name.This is by no means the norm,however.An alternative tradition. stemming from a Han Dynasty law that forbade two-character given names,is to have a single character given name.Some contemporary given names do not follow either tradition,and may in some cases extend to three or more characters.
When generation names are used as part of a two-character given name,it is highly inappropriate and confusing to refer to someone by the first part of their given name only. which will generally be their generation name,Instead,the entire given name should be used. This should be the case regardless of whether the surname is used.For instance,referring to the Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as Hsien or Hsien Lee would be confusing as this could just as easily refer to his brother.However,this does commonly occur in Western societies where the first part of the given name is frequently mistakenly used as the first name when the given name is not hyphenated or adjoined.
