Chinese names and surnames. Chinese names for men. Chinese male names starting with P

There are over 25 thousand Chinese living there.
The full naming of the Chinese always includes the surname (姓 - xìng) and given name (名字 - míngzì). And it is important to remember - according to Chinese etiquette, the surname is always indicated before the given name.
The modern AM of the Chinese includes two elements: the surname, or hereditary name (NI), which comes first, and the one that follows individual name(AI). NI is usually monosyllabic, for example, Wang, Zhou, Ma, etc., rarely disyllabic, for example, Sima, Ouyang. AI is more often two-syllable, less often one-syllable, so full name Chinese, including NI and AI, is most often written in three characters, for example: Li Dazhao. In Russian transmission NI and the first syllable II are written with capital letters; The first and second syllables of AI are usually written together. (In Russian transcription, such AIs were written with a hyphen until recently).
Thus, the full name of a Chinese person can be: firstly, two-syllable (written in Chinese with two characters); in this case it consists of two monosyllabic parts - NI and AI (Du Fu, Lu Xun, Wang Ming); secondly, trisyllabic (written in Chinese with three characters); in this case, it consists of one syllable NI and two syllables II (Zhao Shuli, Qu Qiubo) or two syllables NI and one syllable II (Sima Qian, Ouyang Xiu); thirdly, four-syllable (written in Chinese with four characters); in this case it consists of two syllables NI and two syllables II (Sima Xiangru).
Until relatively recently, a Chinese person had several AIs throughout his life. IN early childhood he bore a “milk” name (zhu-ming, or xiao-ming), known only in the family. For example, the outstanding Chinese writer Lu Xun / Lu Xun after birth received the name Zhangshou (the name was given to him by his grandfather), in accordance with custom, he was also given a middle name (zi) - Yushan. When choosing a name, the Chinese always attach great importance to its meaning. Because this is the name of a young man Lu Xunya pronounced in the local Shaoxing dialect (Zhejiang province) as Yusan "rain umbrella", it was soon replaced by Yucai ("talent", "promising").
The motivation for choosing a dairy name may vary. In some cases, appellatives (appellatives) are chosen as zhu-min linguistic term, often synonymous with the term common noun), the meaning of which reflects any distinctive feature child, for example Heyatou “dark-skinned”, in others the meaning of the name conveys some wish of the parents in connection with the birth of the baby: for example, the name Lindy “will bring younger brothers” (i.e. “she who will bring younger brothers”) could give to a girl in a family where they were looking forward to the birth of a son. Sometimes children had youthful pseudonyms. For example, Xin Xing "fast mover" is a pseudonym Lu Xunya.
After reaching adulthood, the Chinese received an official name (ming), which accompanied him until his death. For example, an adult name for an eighteen-year-old Lu Xunya became Zhou Shuren. When entering the service, parents, friends or relatives gave a middle name (zi). In addition, the adult himself often chose a pseudonym (hao). So, Zhou Shuren in 1918 he took the pseudonym Lu Xun. The first character (Lu) is taken from the surname of Lu Rui's mother, the second (Xin) - from the first character of his youthful pseudonym Xin Xing.
Over the past decades, zi and hao have gradually fallen out of use, and an adult Chinese now usually has only one name or ming. The custom of naming children with special milk names continues.
Almost any combination of hieroglyphs that have a significant meaning can act as AI. Since there are no special anthroponymic formants, any syntactic connections between AI components are possible: definition and defined (Dachun " big spring", Guozhu "support of the state"), predicate and object (Anzhi "let us calm him down"), homogeneous members(Shuzhen "immaculate and pure"), etc.
Official AIs for men usually have meanings associated with qualities such as courage, intelligence, valor, abilities, or with the desire for wealth, nobility, joy, etc. (Shaoqi “brilliant since childhood,” Yuwei “having a great future”), and for women AI - with beauty, grace, virtue or with the names of flowers, butterflies, etc. (Yuemei “moon plum flower”, Mingxia “bright dawn”, Shuying “immaculate petal”, etc.). Thus, although Chinese AIs do not have any formal characteristics that allow them to distinguish a male name from a female one, nevertheless, in most cases it is possible to determine the identity of the name by its lexical meaning. True, there are also names that can be worn by both men and women.
Despite the fact that there is no canonized list of AIs in Chinese anthroponymy, the choice of the official name was not completely arbitrary. In ancient times, the Chinese knew two types of surnames: family names (in Chinese: 姓 – xìng) and clan names (氏 – shì). The list was governed by certain rules known as the pai-han "lining up" system, according to which the names of all representatives of one generation within a kin group (formerly a patrilineal clan, later a large or small family) included a repeating common element. Pai Khan system modern stage- the result of its later development. As Chinese historical sources testify, several centuries ago this system existed in a slightly different version: it united relatives of the same generation within not only the family, but also a much wider kinship group - the clan - zongzu, which included families related to each other; the heads of these families in the male line were descendants of one common ancestor.
Families of one zongzu, formed as a result of the segmentation of one big family, even in the 20th century they continued to maintain certain economic, ideological and public relations. Each family that was part of a zongzu had a jiapu “family genealogy book,” which necessarily contained a list of hieroglyphs for syllables that were required to be included in the names of members of a given zongzu. The common element could be either one of two AI hieroglyphs (for example: Wang Lida, Wang Lifu, Wang Lixi, where the common first syllable of AI is Li; Chen Lifu, Chen Guofu, where the common second syllable is fu), or a graphic determiner in the composition hieroglyph if the AI ​​was monosyllabic. In the latter case, such a determinant most often served as signs denoting the “five elements” - water, fire, metal, wood, earth. According to the ancient cosmogonic ideas of the Chinese, the sequence of elements gives rise to all things.
Therefore, if the names of representatives of one generation contain the sign “water”, then in the next generation the common element should be “fire” and so on. Thus, thanks to the pai-han system, it was possible to determine the degree of his genealogical relationship with other representatives of the same kinship group from a person’s AI. Typically, one common element of AI united the male representatives of a given generation, and another united the female ones. Sometimes, however, this division by gender was not maintained and the AI ​​of all siblings (siblings, cousins, etc.) had the same common element.
A consequence of the widespread prevalence of Pai Khan traditions is that in China a person practically cannot be the namesake of his father or other relatives of adjacent generations, and members of the same zongzu, who lived far from each other and never met, could not only establish their relationship by name, but also accurately determine the age degree of relationship (father's generation, grandfather, children, grandchildren, etc.).
In addition to the restrictions imposed by the Pai Khan system, other circumstances, such as those related to the child’s birthday, were previously taken into account when choosing a name. If this day was characterized by insufficient expression of that element, the combination of which with the element of a given generation foreshadowed happiness for the child, then this deficiency was “corrected” by the introduction of a corresponding graphic element into the AI.
While the set of Chinese AIs is practically unlimited, the number of AIs is relatively small - it does not exceed several hundred. Four or five surnames are particularly common: Zhang, Wang, Li, Zhao, Liu. Over the course of several centuries, there has been a process of narrowing the range of used NIs. Unlike AI, modern Chinese surnames have been largely desemantized, that is, they have lost their real significant meaning. Modern surnames of the Chinese differ from ancient NI: if in our time Chinese surnames are unchanged and pass from father to children for an unlimited number of generations, then initially NI could change.
Ancient NIs were formed either from the grandfather's AI, or from the name of his craft, occupation, position, or from the name of his place of residence. Such NI performed a certain social function, indicating that a person belongs to one or another related group (clan). This, in turn, regulated a person's obligations towards other persons bearing the same NI. Moreover, only the head of a family that spun off from the original group of related families and laid the foundation for a new clan organization could change their NI. Over time as it forms modern surnames they gradually lost their main socially distinctive function. The power of tradition, however, is such that China all namesakes are considered relatives. Therefore, until 1911, marriages between namesakes were prohibited, regardless of whether there were real family relationships between the boy and the girl or not. In order to specify which branch of bearers given surname belonged to a person, before his NI they put the name of the county from which he was from.
The inheritance of the surname occurs through the paternal line. A woman who bore her father's surname before marriage did not change it when she got married, but added her husband's surname to it. Thus, married woman bore two surnames at once and her full name usually consisted of four hieroglyphs, for example: Huang Wang Jieqing (Jieqing - II, Wang - NOR father, Huang - NOR husband). Over the past decades, this custom has become obsolete. Nowadays, when a woman gets married, as a rule, she keeps her maiden name, so the AM of men and women are basically the same.
For various fields public life Characteristic are different forms of naming and address, which do not always coincide with full AM. In the family, the elders call the younger ones by AI (milk, when addressing a child, or official). Calling older relatives by name is considered impolite. Therefore, both when mentioning an older relative, and especially when directly addressing him, the Chinese use the corresponding term of kinship instead of AI. A feature of the Chinese naming system is that in this case a designation is added to the term of kinship regarding the age of the named person within his generation. Hence such typical China forms of address such as “third brother”, “sixth aunt”, “eldest daughter-in-law” and so on.
The use of AI by non-relatives is not regulated only if the named person is younger than the namer. Otherwise, the person may be referred to by the full AM, which is a neutral-polite form. Only someone who is in a very close relationship with him can call a person of the same generation or older than himself AI only, especially if we're talking about about people of different sexes.
Spouses in public not only call each other by their first name, but also add their last name, which by no means makes the address official. Full AM is the norm for naming among acquaintances, colleagues, etc.
The form of official address to an older man was formerly II + xiansheng “master”, “teacher”, to an elderly woman - NI + tai tai “madam”, to a young woman - NI + xiaojie “young lady”. After the establishment of people's power in China These forms of address have fallen out of use, with the exception of the first, which is still used in the case of emphatically polite naming of elders, mainly among the intelligentsia. The most common form of official address nowadays is NI+tongzhi "comrade". The same treatment is widespread among party members. Perhaps an even more common form of official polite address is formed by attaching the name of the position (title) to the NI. This is the only possible form of a subordinate’s address to a superior or to a person occupying a higher social position, for example: Director Wang, Doctor Liu, Department Head Li, Teacher Zhang. In official correspondence, addresses with the addition of adjectives such as Russian dear, deeply respected to the name are not common.
Affections and diminutives There are no AIs. At the same time, there are such addresses to children as, for example, xiao gui - “little devil”, which do not have an abusive or disparaging connotation. The Chinese often address their adult peers in a friendly manner by adding the word lao “elder” before the surname, for example: Lao Wang “old Wang”, Lao Liu “old Liu”. Honorific addresses to elders also include the same word lao, but in this case it is placed after the surname, for example: Liu Lao "venerable Liu", Wang Lao "venerable Wang".
The AM of Chinese outside China undergoes certain changes depending on the nature of the prevailing linguistic and cultural situation. In some countries where hieroglyphic writing has recently been or is still widespread (for example: Japan, Korea, Vietnam), Chinese names, while the hieroglyphic writing remains unchanged, are fixed in the local (Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese) pronunciation (reading) of these hieroglyphs. For example, the Chinese surname and first name Zhu Dehai will sound Chu Tok Hae in Korean, and they are written separately according to Korean tradition. The Chinese full name Huang Shuying is pronounced Ki Xiukuei in Japanese, Li Bo - Ri Hakku. Therefore, identifying Chinese names, for example, in Japanese transmission with their original version is now very difficult (cf. Chinese Zhang Zhiqing - Japanese Te Seijou).
In some countries, Chinese names undergo changes over time (Burmanization, Thaiization, etc.), for example, in Indonesia instead of the Chinese surname Tan they use the Indonesian one - Tanayo, instead of the surname Ong - Onggowasito, etc. In Burma, Chinese names are replaced by Burmese ones that are similar in consonance, for example: Kin Aung Ji, Hla Ji, and so on. At the same time, in the process of Burmanization, Chinese names are rethought and change their structure. Even if the Chinese continue to use exclusively their traditional anthroponyms, the latter still undergo changes, since they are written not in hieroglyphs, but in letters (of some alphabet) and thus the pronunciation of names is fixed, corresponding to the pronunciation norms of the dialect that they consider native.
Chinese traditional names are preserved even when in a new ethno-linguistic environment they have an impolite or even obscene meaning. For example, the Chinese surname Li means "phallus" in Burmese, and the surname Ji means "excrement." The Burmese, in order to avoid unpleasant ambiguity, always use the word Mr. before a Chinese surname.
Along with the Chinese surname and first name, overseas Chinese use local names that correspond to the anthroponymic traditions of the country in which they live. Initially, new names are used exclusively outside the sphere of family and everyday communication. For example, Chinese people born in Burma, received original Chinese names from their parents, but upon entering a Burmese school they were given either Burmese or English name(V Indonesia- Dutch, that is, the cultural influence of the colonial power was felt). The same new name was then kept in college and at work to avoid communication difficulties. Sometimes the transition to foreign names among Chinese living outside China, due to violent measures by the governments of some countries ( Thailand, Indonesia etc.), aimed at accelerating the assimilation of the Chinese population in the country.
But even with the freedom to choose a name, Chinese living in other countries eventually stop giving their children Chinese names, leaving only a Chinese surname. The transition to a foreign name most often occurs under the influence of an adopted new religion (especially Islam or Christianity) or as a result mixed marriages. Very often, a non-Chinese new name is added to the Chinese surname and first name, for example: Fred Zheqing Peng, Vincent Ruzong Shi. Then, over time, under the influence of the local environment, the Chinese name is dropped and only the Chinese surname and the corresponding new name remain, for example, Catholic Chinese may be called Louis Yu, Oswald Wang, Robert Lim, Manuel Xia, Jerome Chen, Ezheng Wu, etc., Muslim Chinese - Muhammad Peng, Hasan Liu, Abdurrahman Zhou, etc.
In the English-speaking environment, the components of Chinese AM most often change places (AI in the first place and NI in the second), and in writing the transcription of the AI ​​characters is given in abbreviation, i.e. in the form of initials, for example: Zhang Zhiqing - C. Ch. Chang. The Chinese, naturalized in the Slavic-speaking environment, often accept not only AI, but also NI, characteristic of the local tradition. Sometimes the full AM begins to be recognized as a surname and passes on to representatives of subsequent generations as NI. Chinese names need to be Russified using the Palladium system. At the same time, it is now customary to write the name in one word (previously you could find, for example, Mao Tse-Tung)

Fact one. The surname is written first.
The Chinese have their surname written and pronounced first, that is, the head of China, Xi Jinping, has his surname Xi and his first name Jinping. The surname is not declined. For the Chinese, all the most important things are “moved forward” - from important to less significant, both in dates (year-month-day) and names (last name-first name). The surname, belonging to the clan, is very important for the Chinese, who make up family trees up to the "50th knee". Residents of Hong Kong (South China) sometimes put their name forward or use an English name instead of a Chinese name - for example, David Mak. By the way, about 60 years ago in Sinology, the use of a hyphen was actively practiced to indicate the boundary of Chinese syllables in names: Mao Tse-tung, Sun Yat-sen. Yat-sen here is a Cantonese recording of the name of a southern Chinese revolutionary, which often confuses Sinologists who are unaware of the existence of such a dialect.
Fact two. 50 percent of Chinese people have 5 main surnames.
Wang, Li, Zhang, Zhou, Chen - these are the five main Chinese surnames, the last Chen is the main surname in Guangdong (South China), almost every third one is Chen. Wang 王 - means "prince" or "king" (head of the region), Li 李 - pear tree, the dynasty that ruled China in the Tang Dynasty, Zhang 张 - archer, Zhou 周 - "cycle, circle", ancient imperial family, Chen 陈 - “old, aged” (about wine, soy sauce, etc.). Unlike Westerners, Chinese surnames are homogeneous, but the Chinese give free rein to their imagination when it comes to names.
Fact three. Most Chinese surnames are monosyllabic.
Two-syllable surnames include rare surnames Sima, Ouyang and a number of others. However, a few years ago, the Chinese government allowed double surnames, where the child was given the surname of both the father and mother - which led to the emergence of such interesting names like Wang-Ma and others. Most Chinese surnames are monosyllabic, and 99% of them can be found in the ancient text "Baijia Xing" - "100 surnames", but the real number of surnames is much larger, almost any noun can be found among the surnames of the 1.3 billion Chinese population.
Fact four. The choice of a Chinese name is limited only by the parents' imagination.
Chinese names are mainly selected according to their meaning, or according to the advice of a fortuneteller. It’s unlikely that you would guess that each hieroglyph belongs to one or another element, and all of them together should bring good luck. In China there is a whole science of choosing a name, so if the name of the interlocutor is very strange, then most likely it was chosen by a fortuneteller. It is interesting that previously in Chinese villages a child could be called by a dissonant name in order to deceive evil spirits. It was assumed that evil spirits They will think that such a child is not valued in the family, and therefore they will not covet him. Most often, the choice of name preserves the old Chinese tradition of playing with meanings, for example, the founder of Alibaba Group is named Ma Yun, (Ma - horse, Yun - cloud), but "yun" in a different tone means "luck", most likely his parents this is the meaning they put into his name, but sticking anything out or speaking openly in China is a sign of bad taste.
Fact five. Chinese names can be divided into masculine and feminine.
As a rule, for male names, hieroglyphs are used with the meaning of “study”, “mind”, “strength”, “forest”, “dragon”, and female names use hieroglyphs for flowers and jewelry, or simply the hieroglyph for “beautiful”.

Female names

Male names

The choice of name in China is determined only by the imagination of the parents. It is customary among the people that first they indicate the last name, and then the first name. This suggests that the Chinese place gender above separate personality. Usually surnames are one-syllable, and first names are two-syllable. Two-syllable surnames and given names are written together, although previously they were written with a hyphen. It is not customary for the Chinese to shorten names to initials.

The most common Chinese surnames:

• Lee (8% of the population);
• Wang (7.4%);
• Zhang (7%);
• Liu (5.3%);
• Chen (4.5%);
• Yang (3%);
• Zhao (2.2%);
• Huang (2.2%);
• Zhou (2.1%);
• U (2%);
• Xu (1.7%);
• Sun (1.5%).

The stock of Chinese surnames is very small (counting in the hundreds), but there are many Chinese names. This is due to ancient customs, according to which a person was given different names throughout his life. They changed depending on age, character, status, work. Until the end of the twentieth century, so-called milk names for children were in use. Only after twenty years did a person receive an official name.

Fun fact: in the old days, Chinese children had quite strange names. This was explained by the fact that deeply religious people tried to deceive evil spirits in this way. It was believed that by giving a bad name to a child, parents indicate that they do not love him. Chinese evil spirits, as a rule, paid attention only to their favorites. If we take into account that sons were valued more than daughters, then girls got beautiful names, and for boys, female and designations for all sorts of objects.

Meaning of female Chinese names

Parents have the right to choose any hieroglyph for the child's name. The sound fades into the background, giving way to the meaning carried by the image of the sign. In China, there is no classification by which hieroglyphs are chosen for names, but the system is very confusing and complex.

The Chinese do not differentiate male and female names based on spelling and grammar, but base the distinction on meaning. Most names sound like wishes for a child. Parents can put into the name everything they want for their child. Traditionally, girls are given names associated with beauty, grace and virtue. Also popular are names denoting gems and beautiful flowers associated with Chinese history. In this way, a woman connected with everything that brings aesthetic pleasure. Boys were often given names of strength, intelligence and courage. They were identified with everything sacred and moral.

Foreign names began to be used in China relatively recently, which creates problems during registration and paperwork. More than 50 million Chinese have names that contain rare characters. You can meet Chinese women with the names Evie, Mary.

Origin of Chinese names

Many Chinese female names have been borrowed from other peoples of the world. So there are names derived from the French Alison and Olivia, the Greek Angels and Selena, the Italian Donna and Mia, the Latin Cordilina, Diana and Victoria, the Scandinavian Brenda and Erica, the Persian Esther, Jasmine and Roxana, the Slavic Nadia and Vera, the Spanish Dolores and Linda, the Aramaic Martha, Celtic Tara.

Chinese names and their meanings

By character traits

Ai – love.

G is pure.

Gia is beautiful.

Zenzen is a jewel.

Zhaohui – wisdom.

Juan is merciful.

Shu – fair.

Rowe is gentle.

Huiliang is good.

Suiin – simple.

Shuang is outspoken.

Jewelry

Biyu - jasper.

Lin – jade.

Mingzhu - pearl.

Flowers

Ju - chrysanthemum.

Lan is an orchid.

Xiaoli - jasmine.

Kiang - rose.

Xiolian - lotus.

Miscellaneous

Xiaofan - dawn.

Xiaozhi - rainbow.

Chuntao - peach.

Kiu - autumn.

Yui is the moon.

Yang is a swallow.

Xu - snow.

Yu - rain.

Yun is a cloud.

Find out the meaning of other names

U Slavic peoples The word darling is often used in conversation. It can be a noun, an adjective, or even an adverb, but in all of them the interpretation...

The Chinese naming system is the basis for many traditional ways naming people in East Asia and Southeast East Asia. Almost all East Asian countries and some Southeast Asian countries follow a tradition similar to Chinese or directly borrowed from Chinese culture.

Variety of names on Chinese depends largely on the personal name rather than the surname. The vast majority of Chinese surnames are written with one hieroglyph, only a few - with two (in the PRC, official lists contain about 20 such “non-standard” surnames, while the rest were reduced to a standard monosyllabic form, including surnames of national minorities, often consisting of more than 2 syllables. The most common Chinese surnames: Li (Chinese: 李, pinyin: Lǐ), Wang (Chinese trad. 王, pinyin: Wang), Zhang (Chinese trad. 張, ex. 张, pinyin: Zhāng) :164 .

Chinese women When getting married, as a rule, they keep their maiden names and do not take their husband’s surname (almost everywhere in the People’s Republic of China). Children usually inherit their father's surname.

In Russian, a space is usually placed between the Chinese surname and given name: Surname Name, while the name is written together. In old sources, Chinese names were written with a hyphen (Feng Yu-hsiang), but later the continuous spelling became accepted: 167 (correctly Feng Yu-hsiang).

Name

Typically, Chinese people have names consisting of one or two syllables, which are written after the surname. There is a rule that a Chinese name must be translatable into Mandarin. A well-known case is associated with this rule when a father, an avid Internet user, was denied registration of his son under the name “” (“this” or “dog”).

In connection with hieroglyphic writing, when choosing a personal name, not only such aspects as meaning and euphony are taken into account, but also the writing of the hieroglyphs that make up the syllables of the name. Not only the simplicity/complexity/beauty of writing can be taken into account, but also the elements that make up these hieroglyphs, which have their own interpretation (favorable/unfavorable, male/female, associated with a certain element, etc.).

In China, for thousands of years, there was a tradition of ritually changing names in connection with reaching a certain age or changing occupation. At birth, the baby received an official name ( min, 名) and “milk”, or children’s name (xiao-ming, Chinese translation 小名, pinyin: xiǎo míng). When entering school, the child was given a student name - Xueming(Chinese: 学名) or Xunming(Chinese: 訓名). Upon reaching adulthood, the parents gave the boy or girl the so-called “middle name” - it was by this name that they should be addressed from now on. to strangers. Upon successful passing of the exams, the person received Damin(Chinese 大名, "big name") or guanming("official name"), which was retained throughout life and used on formal occasions after the surname. For special merits, a representative of the nobility received a nickname (hao, Chinese translation 号, pinyin: hào).

With the formation of the People's Republic of China a complex system The naming has undergone changes. The component composition of Chinese names has been seriously simplified. Along with imperial ranks and titles are a thing of the past - the second individual name - zi, nicknames behao, school names Xueming. Children's names are still used today, but the principles for choosing them have changed. After the introduction of the birth control policy in China, the system lost its significance paikhan .

Baby name

For example, Li Zhenfan (Bruce Lee) had a childhood name of Li Xiaolong (Li Little Dragon), which later became his nickname.

Second name

Second name (字, zì) is a name given upon reaching adulthood (字, zì), which are used throughout life. After 20 years, the middle name is given as a symbol of growing up and respect. Initially, such names were used after male names; a person could receive a second name from his parents, from his first teacher on the first day of visiting family school, or he could choose a second name for himself. The tradition of using middle names gradually began to disappear since the May Fourth Movement (1919). There are two generally accepted forms of the middle name: Tzu 字 (zì) And Hao 號 (hào).

Nickname

Hao is an alternative middle name that is commonly used as a nickname. It most often consists of three or four characters and may have initially become popular because many people often had the same middle names. People most often chose Hao themselves and could have more than one nickname. Hao was in no way connected with the name given to the person at birth and his middle name; rather, the nickname was something personal, sometimes eccentric. The choice of pseudonym could embody an allusion or contain a rare hieroglyph, just as it could be suitable for a highly educated writer. Another possibility is to use the name of the person's place of residence as a pseudonym; thus, the pseudonym of the poet Su Shi is Dongpo Jiushi (that is, “Dongpo Residence” (“On the eastern slope”)) - the residence he built while in exile. Authors often used pseudonyms in the titles of collections of their works.

English-Chinese and Russian-Chinese names of overseas Chinese

The names of Chinese people who emigrated from China to other countries may undergo various transformations. One of the most common is adding a new English name to the Chinese first and last name. In this case, when translating into Russian, the English name should come first, then the Chinese surname, then the Chinese name, despite the fact that the sequence is often written in English<английское имя><китайское имя><китайская фамилия>. Sometimes the sequence is written in English<английское имя><инициалы китайского имени><китайская фамилия>, while it is translated into Russian in the same sequence. A further transformation may be the disappearance of the Chinese name, and then both it is written in English and translated into Russian in the sequence<английское имя><китайская фамилия>. Chinese living in Russia often add the Russian first and patronymic to the Chinese surname or to the Chinese surname and Chinese name, then they are written accordingly<китайская фамилия><китайское имя><русское имя><русское отчество>or<китайская фамилия><русское имя><русское отчество>.

Compared to Europeans, the Chinese began using surnames before our era. Initially, they were characteristic only of the royal family and aristocracy, but gradually they began to be used simple people. Some of them have transformed over time, while others have remained unchanged.

Origin of surnames

If some peoples still do not even have such a concept, then Chinese culture, on the contrary, takes this issue very seriously. Ancient Chinese surnames initial stage had two meanings:

• “xing” (xìng). A concept that was used to define blood relatives, family. Later, a meaning was added to it, indicating the place of origin of the clan. This concept was precisely used by representatives of the imperial family.
• "shi" (shi). Appeared later and was used to show family ties within the entire genus. This was the name of the clan. Over time, it began to denote the similarity of people by occupation.

Over time, these differences disappeared. Today there are no differences between people, but the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire still treat their family with care, honor and carefully study it. Interesting fact can be considered what Koreans use Chinese characters to write your personal names. They adopted them from the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom and made them Korean, for example, Chen.

Meaning of Chinese surnames

Chinese surnames and their meanings have different origins. They have them a large number of, but only about two dozen are widespread. Some came from professional activity(Tao is a potter). Some are based on the name of the dominion states into which China was divided in feudal times (Chen), and some are named after the ancestor who gave the name to the clan (Yuan). But all foreigners were called Hu. Greater value There are a huge number of names in the country.

Translation

There are many dialects in the country, so the same name can sound completely different. Transliterating it into other languages ​​can change the meaning completely, since most of them do not convey intonation, which plays a large role in the Chinese language. Many languages ​​have developed special systems transcriptions in order to somehow unify the spelling and translation of Chinese surnames.

Chinese surnames in Russian

Last names in Chinese are always written first (one syllable), and only then the name is written (one or two syllables), since family comes first for them. In Russian, according to the rules, they are written similarly. A compound name is written together, and not with a hyphen, as was the case until recently. In modern Russian, the so-called Palladian system is used, which, with the exception of some amendments, has been used to record Chinese surnames in Russian since the nineteenth century.

Chinese male surnames

The nicknames of the Chinese do not differentiate by gender, which cannot be said about the name. In addition to the main name, twenty-year-old boys were given a second name (“zi”). Chinese male names and surnames carry the traits that a man should have:

• Bokin - respect for the winner;
• Guozhi – state order;
• Deming - dignity;
• Zhong – loyal, stable;
• Zian – peaceful;
• Iyngji – heroic;
• Kiang – strong;
• Liang – bright;
• Minj – sensitive and wise;
• Rong – military;
• Fa – outstanding;
• Juan - happiness;
• Cheng – achieved;
• Eiguo – country of love, patriot;
• Yun – brave;
• Yaozu – worshiper of ancestors.

Women's

Women in the Middle Kingdom leave their own after marriage. The Chinese don't have certain rules which are used when naming a child. Here main role the parents' imagination plays out. Chinese female names and surnames characterize a woman as a gentle creature, full of affection and love:

• Ai – love;
• Venkian – purified;
• G – pure;
• Jiao – graceful, beautiful;
• Jiya – beautiful;
• Zhilan – rainbow orchid;
• Ki - beautiful jade;
• Kiaohui – experienced and wise;
• Kiyu – autumn moon;
• Xiaoli – morning jasmine;
• Xingjuan – grace;
• Lijuan – beautiful, graceful;
• Lihua – beautiful and prosperous;
• Meihui – beautiful wisdom;
• Ningong – calmness;
• Ruolan - like an orchid;
• Ting – graceful;
• Fenfang – fragrant;
• Huizhong – wise and loyal;
• Chenguang – morning, light;
• Shuang - frank, sincere;
• Yui – moon;
• Yuming – jade brightness;
• Yun – cloud;
• I am grace.

Declension

In Russian, some Chinese surnames are declined. This applies to those that end in a consonant. If they end in “o” or a soft consonant, then it remains unchanged. This applies to male names. Women's names remain unchanged. All these rules are observed if personal names are used separately. When they are written together, only the last part will be subject to declination. Assimilated Chinese personal names will be subject to full declension in Russian.

How many surnames are there in China?

It is difficult to determine exactly how many surnames there are in China, but it is known that only about a hundred of them are in widespread use. The Celestial Empire is a country with a population of many billions, but paradoxically, most of its inhabitants have the same surname. According to tradition, the child inherits it from his father, although recently only the son could wear it, the daughter took her mother’s. Currently, the names of the genus do not change, although at the initial stage the hereditary names could change. This makes life difficult for the official authorities as it is very difficult to maintain records in such circumstances.

An interesting fact, but almost all personal names in Chinese are written in one character, only a small part consists of two syllables, for example, Ouyang. Although there may be exceptions: the writing will consist of three or even four hieroglyphs. Chinese people with the same surname are not considered relatives, but only namesakes, although until recently people were prohibited from marrying if they had the same surname. Often the child could be given double births - father and mother.

Most common

This may seem funny to some, but just over twenty percent of the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom have three surnames. The most common Chinese surnames are Li, Wang, Zhang, Nguyen. IN modern language There are even stable expressions like “three Zhangs, four Lis”, which mean “any”. They may have different spellings depending on the transliteration.

Funny Chinese first and last names

In accordance with the pronunciation, many foreign words look, if not funny, then bizarre when spoken by someone else. Therefore, even the most harmless word in a foreign language can cause laughter in a Russian person. But sometimes parents’ imagination leads to the fact that in the language itself, names can mean funny and sometimes just wild things. Funny names and Chinese surnames:

• Sun Wyn;
• Sui Wyn;
• Chew Yourself;
• Get up Sun.

Naming a person in Chinese and related cultures differs from the naming system adopted in the West. The most noticeable sign of this difference is that in a Chinese full name, the surname is written first, and only after it the personal name.

Surname

The Chinese naming system is the basis for all traditional ways of naming people in East Asia. Almost all East Asian countries follow a tradition similar to China. There are more than 700 different Chinese surnames, but only twenty of them are used by the vast majority of the Chinese people. The variety of names in Chinese largely depends on the personal name rather than the surname. The vast majority of Chinese surnames are written with one hieroglyph, only a few with two (in the PRC, official lists contain about 20 such “non-standard” surnames, while the rest were reduced to a standard monosyllabic form, including surnames of national minorities, often consisting of more than 2 syllables, such as Mongolian ). The most common Chinese surnames are: Li (Chinese: 李, pinyin: Lǐ), Wang (Chinese: 王, pinyin: Wang), Zhang (Chinese trad. 張, exercise 张, pinyin: Zhāng).

Chinese women tend to keep their maiden names and do not take the husband's surname (almost universally in the People's Republic of China), but children tend to inherit their father's surname.

In Russian, a space is usually placed between the Chinese surname and given name: Surname Name, while the name is written together. In old sources, Chinese names were written with a hyphen (Feng Yu-xiang), but later a continuous spelling became accepted (correctly - Feng Yu-xiang).

Typically, Chinese people have names consisting of one or two syllables, which are written after the surname. There is a rule that a Chinese name must be translatable into Mandarin. A well-known case is connected with this rule when a father, an avid Internet user, was denied registration of his son under the name “@”.

Previously, the Chinese had several names throughout their lives: in childhood - “milk”, or children’s name (xiao-ming, Chinese translation: 小名, pinyin: xiǎo míng), adults received an official name (ming, Chinese translation 名, pinyin: ming), those serving among their relatives had a middle name (zi, Chinese translation 字, pinyin: zì), some also took a pseudonym (hao, Chinese translation 号, pinyin: hào). However, by the mid-1980s, it became common for adults to have only one official name, min, although "milk" names in childhood were still common.

Baby name

For example, Li Zhenfan (Bruce Lee) had a childhood name of Li Xiaolong (Li Little Dragon), which later became his nickname.

Second name

Second name (字, zì) is a name given upon reaching adulthood (字, zì), which are used throughout life. After 20 years, the middle name is given as a symbol of growing up and respect. Initially, such names were used after male names; a person could receive a middle name from his parents, from his first teacher on the first day of attending family school, or he could choose a middle name for himself. The tradition of using middle names gradually began to disappear since the May Fourth Movement (1919). There are two generally accepted forms of the middle name: Tzu 字 (zì) And Hao 號 (hào).

Tzu, sometimes also biaozi(表字) is a name traditionally given to Chinese men at the age of 20, marking their coming of age. Sometimes a woman was given a middle name after marriage. As noted above, in modern Chinese society This tradition is no longer generally accepted. According to Book of rituals(禮記), after a man reached maturity, it was disrespectful for other people of the same age to address him by his first name 名 min. Thus, the name given at birth was used only by the person himself or his older relatives; whereas the second name, Tzu, used by adult peers to address each other when communicating or writing.

Tzu, for the most part, a two-syllable name, that is, it consists of two hieroglyphs, and is usually based on min or the name given at birth. Yan Zhitui (顏之推), who lived during the Northern Qi Dynasty, believed that if the purpose of a name given at birth was to distinguish one person from another, then the purpose of a ‘middle name’ was to indicate the moral worth of the person endowed with this name.

The connection that often exists between a person's middle name and his birth name can be seen in the case of Mao Zedong (毛澤東), whose 'courteous name' was Rongzhi (潤之). These two characters have the same root - 氵, meaning "water". Both hieroglyphs can be translated as ‘to benefit’ or ‘to nourish’.

Another way to form a middle name is to use the homophonic character 子 (pinyin zǐ) - polite address to a man - like the first hieroglyph of a two-syllable zì. Thus, for example, Gongsun Qiao's middle name was Zichang (子產), and the poet Du Fu's middle name was Zǐméi (子美).

It is also common for a middle name to be created using the first character, indicating the boy's birth order in his family. Thus, Confucius, whose real name was Kǒng Qiū (孔丘), was given the middle name Zhòngní 仲尼, where the first character 仲 (zhòng) indicates that he was the middle (second) son in his family . The characters most often used in such cases are: Bo (bó 伯) - for the first child, Zhong (zhòng 仲) - for the second, Shu (shū 叔) - for the third, Ji (jì 季) - usually for all younger ones, if there are more than three sons in the family.

The use of the middle name began around the time of the Shang Dynasty and gradually developed into a system that became very common already at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty. At that time, women were also given a middle name. Such a name given to a woman, as a rule, consists of a hieroglyph showing the order of birth among the sisters and her surname. For example, Meng Jiāng 孟姜 was eldest daughter in the Jiang clan.

Until the 20th century, Koreans, Japanese and Vietnamese were also addressed by their middle names.

Courtesy names of some famous people:

Hao (pseudonym)

Hao (Chinese: 號; Chinese: 号; Pinyin: hào) is an alternative middle name that is usually used as a nickname. Most often, it consists of three or four characters and may have initially become popular because many people often had the same middle names. People most often chose Hao themselves and could have more than one nickname. Hao was in no way connected with the name given to the person at birth and his middle name; rather, the nickname was something personal, sometimes eccentric. The choice of pseudonym could embody an allusion, or contain a rare hieroglyph, just as it could be suitable for a highly educated writer. Another possibility is to use the name of the person's place of residence as a pseudonym; thus, the pseudonym of the poet Su Shi is Dongpo Jiushi (that is, “Dongpo Residence” (“On the eastern slope”)) - the residence that he built while in exile. Authors often used their pseudonyms in the titles of collections of their works.

English-Chinese and Russian-Chinese names of overseas Chinese

The names of Chinese people who emigrated from China to other countries may undergo various transformations. One of the most common is adding a new English name to the Chinese first and last name. In this case, when translating into Russian, the English name should come first, then the Chinese surname, then the Chinese name, despite the fact that the sequence is often written in English<английское имя><китайское имя><китайская фамилия>. Sometimes the sequence is written in English<английское имя><инициалы китайского имени><китайская фамилия>, then it is translated into Russian in the same sequence. A further transformation may be the disappearance of the Chinese name, and then both it is written in English and translated into Russian in the sequence<английское имя><китайская фамилия>. Chinese living in Russia often add the Russian first and patronymic to the Chinese surname or to the Chinese surname and Chinese name, then they are written accordingly<китайская фамилия><китайское имя><русское имя><русское отчество>or<китайская фамилия><русское имя><русское отчество>.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B5_%D0 %B8%D0%BC%D1%8F