GENERATION NAMES

After the family or clan name known as a surname in English comes the middle name or family hierarchy name, also called the Generation Name.

Men belonging to the same generation within a clan will share a common name, which can be positioned either in the middle or at the end. This name serves as a classifier to the hierarchical ranking for the generations as specified in the clan's Generation Poem (字輩詞), and is referred to as the Generation Name (輩字). This should not be confused with a common name adopted by a family for its male children and is thus not a true clan generation name because it is only used by that particular family.

What is a Generation ?

Miscellaneous Names

Besides the standard characteristics of a proper name as shown above there are also several other types of names an individual may adopt but not necessarily all of them. These are:

Nickname: called Ruming (乳名) or “milk name” can also be called Infant Name or Xiaoming  (小 名). These are names given to an infant akin to what Westerners call Pet Names, i.e. name that are only used within the family.

Style or Courtesy Name: Zi (字), also referred to as Biaozi (表字) is a special name that is conferred on an individual at age 20 years during a Coming of Age Ceremony (成年禮) followed by a Capping Ceremony (加冠禮) in ancient China. During this ceremony the individual’s hair is plaited together and coiled into a chignon (a knot at the back of the head above the nape) so he can wear a hat. At the same time he is given a Style Name which will contain a Generation Name. Some people refer to the Style Name, Zi (字) or adult name as Hao (號) which is not strictly correct.

  

Assumed name: Hao (號) is a name that can be created by the individual himself or may be given to him by others. There are various methods of developing a hao. Some people used the name of a place of residence, e.g. Sun Yat-sen used his birth county name of Zhongshan (中山) as his hao and this is the name he is known by to the Chinese as Sun Zhongshan (孫中山) but never Sun Yat-sen (a Cantonese pronunciation) (Sun Yixian [孫逸仙]) as used in English. He himself preferred to use Sun Wen (孫文). His birth name was Deming (德明) and his Zi (字) was Zaizhi (載之) where his Generation Name was Zai (載). Other methods include expressions of the individual’s life desires and ambitions.

Tabu Name: Hui (諱) occurs after a Style Name has been bestowed upon an individual following the Coming of Age Ceremony (成年禮) and the Capping Ceremony (加冠禮). This Style Name is also referred to as an adult name. Thereafter, the individual’s birth name is no longer used outside of the family, hence the term tabu name.

Pen name: Biming (筆名) is used mainly by writers or artists akin to the Western practice of a literary or pseudo name as was the case with the well known American author Mark Twain whose real name was Samuel Clemens. 

This can sometimes get out of hand as an individual may adopt a plethora of pen names as was the case with a famous writer whose original name was Zhou Shuren (周樹人) who had about 40 pen names and his most well known one was Lu Xun (鲁迅). There are two methods of developing a pen name, one is to use the divide rule. In this method the person’s original name is split into two components as in the case of another writer whose real name was Zha Liangyong (查良鏞). He took his personal name, divided them up and came up with Jin (金) and Yong (庸) and his pen name became Jin Yong (金庸). The second method was to use a name of similar sound as was the case with the late Zhou Enlai (周恩來) whose code name (alias) was Wuhao (五號) which he crafted intoWuhao (五豪).

Stage name: Yiming (藝名) are used by people in entertainment and is still practiced to this day. Here are two examples of modern day usage, actor Jackie Chan’s stage name is Chenglong (成龍) to mean “became a dragon” while the late Bruce Lee’s stage name was Xiaolong (小龍) to mean “little dragon”.