Chinese Personal Names

Online Tools

 * Behind the Name: Chinese Surnames
 * Behind the Name: Chinese Given Names

Surnames
Chinese personal names are names used by those from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and other parts of the Chinese-speaking world such as Singapore. Due to China's historical dominance in East Asia and Vietnam, many names used in Korea and Vietnam are adaptations of Chinese names or have historical roots in Chinese, with appropriate adaptation to accommodate linguistic differences.

Modern Chinese names consist of a family name (xìngshì; 姓氏), which comes first and is usually but not always monosyllabic, followed by a given name (míng; 名), which is almost always disyllabic, consisting of two characters. Prior to the 21st century, most educated Chinese men also utilized a "courtesy name" or "style name" (zì; 字) by which they were known among those outside their family and closest friends. Respected artists or poets will sometimes also use a professional "art name" (hào; 號) among their social peers.

Origins of Names
According to Mr. Kiang Kang Hu, author of the book On Chinese Studies, there were 18 sources from which surnames were derived:


 * The name of a dynasty (Tang)
 * Feudal territory or division (Chiang, Huang)
 * Political district (Hong)
 * Town (Yin, Su)
 * Rural villages (Lu, Yen)
 * Cross-roads and stations (Mi)
 * Suburbs of direction (Tung-shiang, Xi-men)
 * Historical personage (Chin, Fu)
 * Use of a man's social name for a family name (Fang, Kung)
 * A custom of adopting the appellation applied to a relative (Meng, Mi)
 * Clans or tribes (So, Chang)
 * Official posts (Shih, Shuai)
 * Titles of nobility (Wang, Hou)
 * Occupations of trades (Wu, Tao)
 * Objects (Chu, Pu)
 * Posthumous titles of rulers (Wen)
 * Adding a diminutive to the parent name (Wang-tsu, Gong-sun)
 * Name of contempt applied to an evil-doer by a ruler (Fu, Mang)

To find out more about the Chinese surnames, we suggest you browse the Book Of Hundred Surnames and Chinese Surname on Wikipedia.

Histories of Chinese Surnames in Wikipedia
Wikipedia has a number of very useful articles about Chinese surnames, detailing their origins, histories, and distribution in present-day China and sometimes beyond. You can view this example to see what one of the articles may have in it.

Yuan (surname)

Many other pages about Chinese surnames can be found on this category listing page on Wikipedia.

Chinese language surnames

Not all the pages have (surname) after them, since it is more obvious that the article is about a surname. There will be no specific genealogical data in these articles, only details of how the surname developed, and other historical matters.

To find a page for a surname that for some reason is not listed there, type the URL shown for the Yuan surname as shown above, substituting the surname you wish to see if there is an article about it where you see Yuan in the URL above. If that does not turn up any results that look right, take off the _(surname) part of the URL, and it is possible that it might be found that way. However, it is possible that articles about some surnames are not on Wikipedia yet.