Compared to Europeans, the Chinese began using surnames even before our era. Initially, they were peculiar only to the royal family, the aristocracy, but gradually ordinary people began to use them. 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. At the initial stage, ancient Chinese surnames had two meanings:
- "Sin" (xìng). The concept that was used to define blood relatives, family. Later, a meaning was added to it indicating the place of origin of the genus. This concept was used by representatives of the imperial family.
- "Shi" (shi). It 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 have faded. 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. An interesting fact It can be assumed that Koreans use Chinese characters to write their personal names. They adopted them from the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire and Koreized, for example, Chen.
The meaning of Chinese surnames
Chinese surnames and their meanings have different origins. They have a large number of them, but only about two dozen are widespread. Some descended from professional activity (Tao is a potter). Part is based on the name of the states-possessions into which China was fragmented in feudal times (Chen), and part bears the name of the ancestor who gave the name to the clan (Yuan). But all the strangers were called Hu. Of great importance in the country are names, of which there are a huge number.
Translation
There are many dialects in the country, so the same name can sound completely different. Transliterating it into other languages \u200b\u200bcan completely change the meaning, since most of them do not convey intonation, which plays a large role in the Chinese language. Many languages \u200b\u200bhave developed special transcription systems to somehow unify the spelling and translation of Chinese surnames.
Chinese surnames in Russian
Surnames in Chinese are always written in the first place (one syllable), and only then the name is written (one or two syllables), since the family comes first for them. In Russian, according to the rules, they are written in the same way. The compound name is written in one piece, and not separated by a hyphen, as it was until recently. In modern Russian, the so-called Palladium system is used, which has been used since the nineteenth century, with the exception of some amendments, to write Chinese surnames in Russian.
Chinese surnames for men
The nicknames of the Chinese do not differ by gender, which cannot be said about the name. In addition to the main name, twenty-year-old boys were given a middle name ("tzu"). Chinese names and surnames for men bear the traits that a man should have:
- Bokin - respect for the winner;
- Guoji - state order;
- Deming - dignity;
- Zhong - loyal, steady;
- Zian is peaceful;
- Iingji - heroic;
- Kiang is strong;
- Liang is bright;
- Minj is sensitive and wise;
- Rong is a military man;
- Fa is outstanding;
- Juan - happiness;
- Cheng - achieved;
- Eyguo is a country of love, a patriot;
- Yun is brave;
- Yaozu is an ancestor worshiper.
Womens
Women in the Middle Kingdom, after marriage, leave their own. The Chinese do not have certain rules that govern when they name a child. The parents' fantasy plays the main role here. Chinese names and surnames for women characterize a woman as a gentle creature, full of affection and love:
- Ai - love;
- Venkian - purified;
- Ji - pure;
- Jiao - graceful, beautiful;
- Jia is beautiful;
- Zhilan - rainbow orchid
- Ki - beautiful jade;
- Kiaohui - experienced and wise;
- Kiyu - the autumn moon;
- Xiaoli - morning jasmine;
- Xingjuan - grace;
- Lijuang is beautiful, graceful;
- Lihua - beautiful and prosperous;
- Meihui - beautiful wisdom;
- Ningong - calmness;
- Ruolan - like an orchid;
- Ting is graceful;
- Fenfang - aromatic;
- Huizhong - wise and loyal;
- Chenguang - morning light;
- Shuang - frank, sincere;
- Yui is the moon;
- Yuming - jade brightness;
- Yun is a cloud;
- I am grace.
Declination
In Russian, some Chinese surnames are declined. This applies to those that end in a consonant sound. If they have the ending "o" or a soft consonant, then it remains unchanged. This applies to male names. Women's names remain unchanged. All of these rules are followed if personal names are used separately. When written together, only the last part will be declined. Assimilated Chinese personal names will obey the full declension in Russian.
How many surnames 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 multibillion-dollar population, but paradoxically, most of its inhabitants bear the same surname. By tradition, the child inherits it from his father, although recently only his son could wear it, the daughter took the mother's. At present, the names of the genus do not change, although at the initial stage, hereditary names could change. This makes life difficult for the authorities, since it is very difficult to keep records in such circumstances.
An interesting fact, but almost all personal names in Chinese are written in one hieroglyph, only a small part consists of two syllables, for example, Ouyang. Although exceptions may occur: the spelling will consist of three or even four hieroglyphs. Chinese with the same surname are not considered relatives, but only the same surname, although until recently people were forbidden to marry if they had the same name. Often the child could be given doubles - father and mother.
Fact one. The surname is written in the first place.
The surname of the Chinese is written and pronounced first, that is, the head of China, Xi Jinping, has the surname Xi, and the name is Jinping. The last name is not declined. For the Chinese, all the most important things are "put forward" - from important to less significant, both in dates (year-month-day) and names (surname-name). Surname, gender - very important for the Chinese, who make up family trees to the "50th knee". The inhabitants of Hong Kong (South China) sometimes put their name in front or instead of a Chinese name they call an English name - for example, David Mac. By the way, 60 years ago in Sinology, the use of a hyphen to denote the border of Chinese syllables in names was actively practiced: Mao Tse-tung, Sun Yat-sen. Yat-sen here is the Cantonese spelling of the name of a South Chinese revolutionary, which often confuses Sinologists who are unaware of the existence of such a dialect.
The second fact. 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), there are almost every third 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, seasoned" (about wine, soy sauce, etc.). Unlike the people of the West, Chinese surnames are homogeneous, but in the names the Chinese give their imagination room.
Fact three. Most Chinese surnames are monosyllabic.
The two-syllable surnames include the rare surnames of Sima, Ouyang and a number of others. However, a few years ago, the Chinese government allowed double surnames when a child was given the father's and mother's surnames - leading to interesting surnames such as Wang-Ma and others. Most of the 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 imagination of the parents.
Chinese names are mostly chosen by meaning, or by the advice of a fortuneteller. You hardly guess that each hieroglyph refers to one element or another, 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. Interestingly, in the past, in Chinese villages, a child could be called with a dissonant name, in order to deceive evil spirits. It was assumed that evil spirits would think that such a child was not valued in the family, and therefore would not be fond of him. Most often, the choice of a name preserves the old Chinese tradition of the game of meanings, for example, the founder of "Alibaba" is named Ma Yun, (Ma is a horse, Yun is a cloud), however, "yun" in a different tone means "luck", most likely, his parents invested in his name it is precisely this meaning, but to stick out or speak openly in China is a sign of bad taste.
Fact five. Chinese names can be divided into male and female names.
As a rule, for male names they use hieroglyphs with the meaning "study", "mind", "strength", "forest", "dragon", and female names use hieroglyphs for flowers and jewelry, or just the hieroglyph for "beautiful".
Below are Chinese male names list:
Chinese male names starting with the letter A:
Chinese male names starting with the letter B:
Bai - white
Bao - treasure, jewel
Bingwen - flamboyant and cultured
Bo-wave
Bojing - delighted with victory
Bokin - respect for the winner
Bolin - Big Brother Rain
Bohai - Big Brother Sea
Bay - white
Chinese male names starting with the letter B:
Wei - greatness
Veij - great sage
Weymin - bringing greatness (to people)
Weisheng - born great
Weiyuan - preserving depth
Wei - greatness or impressive energy
Wenkang - processing
Wenyan - purified and virtuous
Wuzhou - five continents
Chinese male names starting with the letter G:
Ganges - welfare
Genghis - true
Hong Kong - big or wild swan
Guang - easy
Guangli - bright
Guway - state
Gui - honored or noble
Guoji - state order
Guoliang - a country can be kind
Guren - evaluation of benevolence
Chinese male names starting with the letter D:
Yes - achievement
Delune - a virtuous order
Deming - dignity
Janji - beautiful and outstanding
Geming - revolution
Jen is the root
Gian is healthy
Jiang - Yangtze River
Jianguo - state system
Jianjun - Army Building
Jianyu - Building the Universe
Jing - capital (city)
Jingguo - Governor of the State
Jinging - the golden mirror
Jinhei - golden, marine
Dingxiang - stability and prosperity
Dong - oriental or winter
Dongay - oriental, sea
Duy - independent, whole
Day - tension
Chinese male names starting with the letter Ж:
Jikiang - strong desire
Zhong - loyal, steady
Chinese male names starting with the letter Z:
Zedong - living east of the swamp
Zemin - approved by people
Zengguang - magnifying light
Zian - Peaceful
Ziksin - faith
Zihao - the heroic son
Zongmeng - taking Mencius as a model
Zen - surprised
Zhangjong - vertical and loyal
Zhangsheng - may government rise
Chinese male names starting with the letter I:
Yingji - Heroic
Iingpei - admirable
Yongzeng - vertical
Yongliang - bright
Yongnian - eternal years
Yongrui is always lucky
Chinese male names starting with the letter Y:
Yi - bright
Chinese male names starting with the letter K:
Kang - welfare
Key - unprecedented
Kiang - strong
Kianfan - a thousand sails
Kikiang - enlightenment and strength
Kingshan - a celebration of excellence
Kingsheng - birthday celebration
Kiu - autumn
Xiaauen - filial, civic duty
Xianliang - decent brightness
Xiaobo - the little wrestler
Xiaodan - a little dawn
Xiaojian - healthy
Xiaozi - filial thoughts
Xiaosheng - small birth
Xin - new
Xing - emerging
Xiu - grown
Xu - diligent
Xuekin - snow-white celery
Xueyu - diligent and friendly
Kuang - spring (water)
Chinese male names starting with the letter L:
Lei - thunder
Lee - vertical
Liang - bright
Livay - making profit and greatness
Ling - Compassionate, Understanding
Liu - current
Longway - the greatness of the dragon
Chinese male names starting with the letter M:
Mengyao - can a child be as good and wise as Mencius and Yao
Mingli - flamboyant relevance
Minj - sensitive and wise
Minsheng - the voice of the people
Chinese male names starting with the letter H:
Nianzu - thinking about ancestors
Chinese male names starting with the letter P:
Peng - Roc bird (bird from legend)
Pengfei - bird flight
Ping - steady
Chinese male names starting with the letter P:
Renshu - benevolent abstinence
Rong - military
Ruthenium - scientist
Chinese male names starting with the letter C:
Siyu - thinking about the world
Xiangjiang - circling in the air (like a bird)
Chinese male names starting with the letter T:
Tao - big waves
Tengfei - increase
Tingzh - may the judgment be wise
Chinese male names starting with the letter F:
Fa is outstanding
Fang - honest
Feng - sharp blade or wind
Fengj - Phoenix Bird
Branch - waves
Fu is rich
Fuhua - prosperous
Chinese male names starting with the letter X:
Hang - flood
Heng - eternal
Hee is a yellow river
Hongki is a red flag
Hongui - shine
Juan - happiness
Hui - shine
Huojin - metal
Hey - sea
Chinese male names starting with the letter H:
Changming is always bright
Changpu is always simple
Chao - excess
Chaoxiang - awaiting welfare
Cheng - achieved
Chengley - large
Chongan - Second Brother's World
Jeonggun - the mountain of the second brother
Chonglin is the second brother's unicorn
Chuanli - conveying propriety
Chinese male names starting with the letter W:
Shining - the world
Shang - mountain
Shanyuan - top of the mountain
Shen - cautious or deep
Shi - front horizontal bar on a wagon or cart
Shirong - Academic Honor
Shoushan - a mountain of longevity
Shunyuan - next to the source
Chinese male names starting with the letter E:
Eyguo - the land of love, patriot
Enlay - benefit
Chinese male names starting with the letter Yu:
Yu is a friend
Yuangjong - owner of the Yuan River
Yun is brave
Yunksu - cloudy void
Yusheng - jade birth
Yusheng - steady and determined
Chinese male names starting with the letter I:
Yang is the sample
Yangling - swallow forest or Peking forest
Yaozu - ancestor worshiper
Yaoting - respect for the courtyard
Yaochuan - river worshiper
The full naming of the Chinese always includes the surname (姓 - xìng) and the first name (名字 - míngzì). And it is important to remember - the surname is always indicated before the name.
Chinese surnames
Usually they consist of one character (hieroglyph). For example, the most famous, 李 - Lǐ (literally means "plum"), 王 - Wáng (literally "prince", "ruler"). But sometimes there are surnames from two hieroglyphs. For example, 司马 - Sīmǎ (literally, "voivode" - "to rule" + "horse"), 欧阳 - Ouyáng.
There are 3,000 Chinese surnames in total. The most common among them: 李 - Lǐ, 陈 - Chén, 刘 - Liú, 杨 - Yáng, 黄 - Huáng, 张 - Zhāng, 赵 - Zhào, 周 - Zhōu, 王 - Wáng, 吴 - Wú.
Chinese names
They differ from European ones in that they rarely repeat. In China, there is no list of names at all. Parents come up with names for their children. The choice of a name can be influenced by certain traditions, family omens, superstitions.
And yet, due to the large number of carriers of names and surnames, a certain shortage of surnames arises. In addition, fewer and fewer names are used. So, if earlier there were about 12,000 surnames, now there are about 3,000 of them. About 350 million people get by with only five surnames: Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu and Chen. Moreover, many people with the same surnames also have the same first names. For example, in 1996, there were over 2,300 people living in Tianjin called Zhangli, who spelled that name the same way. And there are even more people who spelled this name in different ways. This is a serious inconvenience, since they may even arrest an innocent person, or close someone else's account, or even perform an operation on someone who did not need it!
Some Chinese names tell whether it is masculine or feminine. But often by the name itself it is impossible to guess whether it belongs to a man or a woman.
Chinese names also consist of one or two. In transcription, it is customary to write the surname and first name separately. For example, Sīmǎ Qiān - Sima Qian.
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Fact one. The surname is written in the first place.
The surname of the Chinese is written and pronounced first, that is, the head of China, Xi Jinping, has the surname Xi, and the name is Jinping. The last name is not declined. For the Chinese, all the most important things are "put forward" - from important to less significant, both in dates (year-month-day) and names (surname-name). The surname, belonging to the genus is very important for the Chinese, who compose family trees up to the "50th generation". The inhabitants of Hong Kong (South China) sometimes put their name in front or instead of a Chinese name they call an English name - for example, David Mac. By the way, 60 years ago, in Sinology, the use of a hyphen to denote the border of Chinese syllables in names was actively practiced: Mao Tse-tung, Sun Yat-sen. Yat-sen here is the Cantonese spelling of the name of a South Chinese revolutionary, which often confuses Sinologists who are unaware of the existence of such a dialect.
The second fact. 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), there are almost every third 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, seasoned" (about wine, soy sauce, etc.). Unlike the people of the West, Chinese surnames are homogeneous, but in the names the Chinese give their imagination room.
Fact three. Most Chinese surnames are monosyllabic.
The two-syllable surnames include the rare surnames of Sima, Ouyang and a number of others. However, a few years ago, the Chinese government allowed double surnames when a child was given the father's and mother's surnames - leading to interesting surnames such as Wang-Ma and others. Most of the 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 imagination of the parents.
Chinese names are mostly chosen by meaning, or by the advice of a fortuneteller. You hardly guess that each hieroglyph refers to one element or another, 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. Interestingly, in the past, in Chinese villages, a child could be called with a dissonant name, in order to deceive evil spirits. It was assumed that evil spirits would think that such a child was not valued in the family, and therefore would not be fond of him. Most often, the choice of a name preserves the old Chinese tradition of the game of meanings, for example, the founder of "Alibaba" is named Ma Yun, (Ma is a horse, Yun is a cloud), however, "yun" in a different tone means "luck", most likely, his parents invested in his name it is precisely this meaning, but to stick out or speak openly in China is a sign of bad taste.
Fact five. Chinese names can be divided into male and female names.
As a rule, male names use hieroglyphs meaning "study", "intelligence", "strength", "forest", "dragon", and female names use hieroglyphs for flowers and jewelry, or just the hieroglyph "beautiful".
