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29-568: Shi Hong (石弘) (313 – c. December 334), courtesy name Daya (大雅), was briefly an emperor of the Jie -led Later Zhao dynasty of China after the death of his father Shi Le , Later Zhao's founder. Because after his cousin Shi Hu deposed him, he was created the Prince of Haiyang (海陽王), he is sometimes known by that title. Shi Hong was Shi Le's second son, by his concubine Consort Cheng . Unlike

58-404: A doubled pair of characters or two characters with identical pronunciation. A famous exception to this generally feminine practice is Yo-Yo Ma . Apart from generational names, siblings' names are frequently related in other ways as well. For example, one son's name may include a character meaning "Sun" ( 阳 or 日 ) while his sister would have the character for "Moon" ( 月 ) or a character including

87-570: A general cultural tendency to regard names as significant , the choice of what name to bestow upon one's children was considered very important in traditional China. Yan Zhitui of the Northern Qi dynasty asserted that whereas the purpose of a given name was to distinguish one person from another, a courtesy name should express the bearer's moral integrity. Prior to the twentieth century, sinicized Koreans , Vietnamese , and Japanese were also referred to by their courtesy name. The practice

116-428: A man – as the first character of the disyllabic courtesy name. Thus, for example, Gongsun Qiao 's courtesy name was Zichan ( 子產 ), and Du Fu 's was Zimei ( 子美 ). It was also common to construct a courtesy name by using as the first character one which expresses the bearer's birth order among male siblings in his family. Thus Confucius , whose name was Kong Qiu ( 孔丘 ), was given the courtesy name Zhongni ( 仲尼 ), where

145-693: A non-Chinese name (typically English ) in addition to their Chinese names. For example, the Taiwanese politician Soong Chu-yu is also known as "James Soong". In the case of Christians, their Western names are often their baptismal names. In Hong Kong , it is common to list the names all together, beginning with the English given name, moving on to the Chinese surname, and then ending with the Chinese given name – for example, Alex Fong Chung-Sun . Among American-born and other overseas Chinese it

174-425: A space between each. This can cause non–Chinese-speakers to incorrectly take the names as divisible. In regions where fortune-telling is more popular, many parents may name their children on the advice of literomancers . The advice are often given based on the number of strokes of the names or the perceived elemental value of the characters in relation to the child's birth time and personal elemental value; rarely on

203-426: A title – for example, "Mister Zhang", "Mother Li" or "Chu's Wife". Personal names are used when referring to adult friends or to children and are typically spoken completely; if the given name is two characters long, it is almost never truncated. Another common way to reference someone in a friendly way is to call them "Old" ( 老 , Lǎo ) or "Little" ( 小 , xiǎo ) along with their surname. Many people have

232-595: Is a small number of generational names which are cycled through. Together, these generation names may be a poem about the hope or history of the family. This tradition has largely fallen into abeyance since the Communist victory in the Civil War ; the "Ze" (泽) in Mao Zedong was the fourteenth generation of such a cycle, but he chose to ignore his family's generational poem to name his own sons. A similar practice

261-399: Is common practice to be referred to primarily by one's non-Chinese name, with the Chinese one relegated to alternate or middle name status. Recent immigrants, however, often use their Chinese name as their legal name and adopt a non-Chinese name for casual use only. Proper use of pinyin romanization means treating a Chinese given name as a single word with no space between the letters of

290-533: Is quite rare to see Chinese children bear the same name as their fathers – the closest examples typically include small differences, such as the former Premier Li Peng 's son, who is named Li Xiaopeng . Since the Three Kingdoms era, some families have had generation names worked out long in advance, and all members (or all male members) of a generation have the same first character in their two-character given names. In other families there

319-617: The Cultural Revolution have "revolutionary names" such as Qiangguo ( 强国 , lit. "Strong Country" or "Strengthening the Country") or Dongfeng ( 东 风 , lit. "Eastern Wind"). In Taiwan , it was formerly common to incorporate one of the four characters of the name " Republic of China " ( 中華 民國 , Zhōnghuá Mínguó ) into masculine names. Patriotic names remain common but are becoming less popular – 960,000 Chinese are currently named Jianguo ( 建国 , lit. "Building

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348-504: The Country") but only a few thousand more are now being added each year. Within families, adults rarely refer to each other by personal names. Adult relatives and children referring to adults generally use a family title such as "Big Sister", "Second Sister", "Third Sister", and so on. It is considered rude for a child to refer to parents by their given name, and this taboo is extended to all adult relatives. When speaking of non-family social acquaintances, people are generally referred to by

377-654: The Prince of Qin and Shi Hui (石恢) the Prince of Nanyang in Chongxun Palace, and soon executed them. Shi Le's descendants were, by this point, exterminated by Shi Hu. Courtesy name Unlike art names , which are more akin to pseudonyms or pen names , courtesy names served a formal and respectful purpose. In traditional Chinese society, using someone’s given name in adulthood was considered disrespectful among peers, making courtesy names essential for formal communication and writing. Courtesy names often reflect

406-402: The Prince of Wei, with intent to echo the powers that Cao Cao had while being Emperor Xian of Han 's regent. Shi Le's wife Empress Dowager Liu decided to take a chance. She conspired with Shi Le's adopted son Shi Kan (石堪) the Prince of Pengcheng to start a rebellion against Shi Hu, but Shi Kan was defeated and executed cruelly by burning. Empress Dowager Liu, after her role was discovered,

435-450: The age of 20 sui , marking their coming of age . It was sometimes given to women, usually upon marriage. The practice is no longer common in modern Chinese society. According to the Book of Rites , after a man reached adulthood, it was disrespectful for others of the same generation to address him by his given name . Thus, the given name was reserved for oneself and one's elders, whereas

464-503: The child's fortune to copy the names of celebrities or famous historical figures. A common name like " Liu Xiang " might be possessed by tens of thousands of people, but generally they were not named for the athlete. An even stronger naming taboo was current during the time of the Chinese Empire , when other bearers of the emperor's name could be gravely punished for not having changed their name upon his ascension. Similarly, it

493-601: The courtesy name would be used by adults of the same generation to refer to one another on formal occasions or in writing. Another translation of zi is "style name", but this translation has been criticised as misleading, because it could imply an official or legal title. Generally speaking, courtesy names before the Qin dynasty were one syllable, and from the Qin to the 20th century they were mostly disyllabic , consisting of two Chinese characters . Courtesy names were often relative to

522-472: The first character zhong indicates that he was the second son born into his family. The characters commonly used are bo ( 伯 ) for the first, zhong ( 仲 ) for the second, shu ( 叔 ) for the third, and ji ( 季 ) typically for the youngest, if the family consists of more than three sons. General Sun Jian 's four sons, for instance, were Sun Ce ( 伯符 , Bófú), Sun Quan ( 仲謀 , Zhòngmóu), Sun Yi ( 叔弼 , Shūbì) and Sun Kuang ( 季佐 , Jìzuǒ). Reflecting

551-467: The general who contributed the most to Shi Le's campaign successes, he should be crown prince. In fall of 333, Shi Le died, and Shi Hu immediately seized power in a coup. In fear, Shi Hong offered to yield the throne to Shi Hu, but Shi Hu refused and forced Shi Hong to assume the throne and make him prime minister, and Shi Hong did so. Shi Hu killed Shi Le's advisors Cheng Xia , Shi Hong's uncle, and Xu Guang . Shi Hu further forced Shi Hong to create him

580-491: The meaning of the given name or use homophonic characters, and were typically disyllabic after the Qin dynasty . The practice also extended to other East Asian cultures, and was sometimes adopted by Mongols and Manchus during the Qing dynasty . The choice of a courtesy name was significant, intended to express moral integrity and respect within the cultural context. A courtesy name is a name traditionally given to Chinese men at

609-419: The meaning of the person's given name, the relationship could be synonyms, relative affairs, or rarely but sometimes antonym. For example, Chiang Kai-shek 's given name ( 中正 , romanized as Chung-cheng) and courtesy name ( 介石 , romanized as Kai-shek) are both from the yù (豫) hexagram 16 of I Ching . Another way to form a courtesy name is to use the homophonic character zi ( 子 ) – a respectful title for

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638-575: The militaristic Shi Le, Shi Hong was known for his literary studies and kindness. After his older brother Shi Xing (石興) died, Shi Le made him his heir apparent . In 330, after Shi Le declared himself first "Heavenly King" ( Tian Wang ) and then emperor, he created Shi Hong crown prince . Shi Le, concerned that his powerful nephew Shi Hu , a ferocious general, had too much power, began to transfer some of Shi Hu's power to Shi Hong, but this only served to aggravate Shi Hu, who already resented Shi Hong for being younger but yet crown prince, believing that, as

667-451: The moon radical . It is also common to split modern Chinese words – which now usually consist of two characters of similar meaning both to each other and the full word – among a pair of children, such as Jiankang ( 健康 , "healthy") appearing in the children's names as -jian ( 健 , "strong") and -kang ( 康 , "healthy"). Chinese personal names can also reflect periods of history. For example, many Chinese born during

696-515: The surname. Therefore, Wei ( 伟 ) of the Zhang ( 张 ) family is called "Zhang Wei" and not "Wei Zhang". In contrast to the relative paucity of Chinese surnames , given names can theoretically include any of the Chinese language's 100,000 characters and contain almost any meaning. It is considered disrespectful in China to name a child after an older relative, and both bad practice and disadvantageous for

725-407: The throne. Shi Hong returned to the palace and cried to Empress Dowager Cheng that the descendants of Shi Le would be exterminated. Soon thereafter, claiming that Shi Hong had violated the customs on mourning, Shi Hu deposed Shi Hong and demoted Shi Hong to the title of the Prince of Haiyang and imprisoned Shi Hong along with Empress Dowager Cheng and his brothers Shi Hong (石宏, note different character)

754-483: The two characters: for example, the common name 王秀英 is properly rendered either with its tone marks as Wáng Xiùyīng or without as Wang Xiuying, but should not be written as Wang Xiu Ying, Wang XiuYing, Wangxiuying, &c. The earlier Wade-Giles system accomplished the same effect by hyphenating the given name between the characters: for example, the same name would be written as Wang Hsiù -yīng . However, many Chinese do not follow these rules, romanizing their names with

783-537: Was also adopted by some Mongols and Manchus after the Qing conquest of China. Chinese given name Chinese given names ( Chinese : 名 ; pinyin : míng ) are the given names adopted by speakers of the Chinese language , both in majority-Sinophone countries and among the Chinese diaspora . Chinese given names are almost always made up of one or - usually - two characters and are written after

812-455: Was also executed. Shi Hong's mother Consort Cheng assumed the empress dowager title. Shi Hu also subsequently defeated the efforts by Shi Sheng (石生) the Prince of Hedong, Shi Lang (石朗), and Guo Quan (郭權) to overthrow him. In 334, unable to stand Shi Hu's persecution, Shi Hong personally visited Shi Hu and offered him the throne and the imperial seal, and Shi Hu refused—making it clear that it would be his initiative, not Shi Hong's, if he wanted

841-778: Was observed regarding the stage names of Chinese opera performers: all the students entering a training academy in the same year would adopt the same first character in their new "given name". For example, as part of the class entering the National Drama School in 1933, Li Yuru adopted a name with the central character "jade" ( 玉 ). There are also other conventions. It is frequently the case that children are given names based on gender stereotypes , with boys acquiring 'masculine' names implying strength or courage while girls receive 'feminine' names concerning beauty or flowers. Since doubled characters are considered diminutives in Chinese, many girls also receive names including

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