Chinese style name
From Free net encyclopedia
A Chinese style name, sometimes also known as a courtesy name (zi), is an extra name that could be used in place of one's given name. A person could be given a zi by his parents, or adopt one later in life himself. The tradition of using style names faded away after the May Fourth Movement and is rarely practised today. There are two common forms of style name, the zi and the hao.
Contents |
Zi
| Chinese style name | |
|---|---|
| Chinese name | |
| Traditional Chinese: | (表)字 |
| Simplified Chinese: | (表)字 |
| Hanyu Pinyin: | (biǎo) zì |
| Wade-Giles: | (piao) tzu |
| Japanese name | |
| Kanji: | 字 |
| Kana: | あざな |
| Rōmaji: | azana |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul: | 자 |
| Hanja: | 字 |
| Revised Romanization: | ja |
| McCune-Reischauer: | cha |
The zi, sometimes called the biaozi or 'courtesy name', is a name traditionally given to Chinese males at the age of 20, marking their coming of age. It was sometimes given to females upon marriage. As noted above, the practice is no longer common in modern Chinese society. According to the Book of Rites (礼记), after a man reaches adulthood, it is disrespectful for others of the same generation to address him by his given name, or ming. Thus, the given name was reserved for oneself and one's elders, while the zi would be used by adults of the same generation to refer to one another on formal occasions or in writing; hence the term 'courtesy name'.
The zi is mostly disyllabic, i.e., comprises two characters, and is usually based on the meaning of the ming or given name. Yan Zhitui (颜之推) of the Northern Qi Dynasty believed that while the purpose of the ming was to distinguish one person from another, the zi should express the bearer's moral integrity.
The relation which often exists between a person's zi and his ming can be seen in the case of Mao Zedong (毛泽东), whose zi was Runzhi (润之). These two characters share the same radical - 氵, which signifies water. Both characters can mean 'to benefit' or 'to nourish'.
Another way to form a zi is to use the homophonic character zi (Simplified Chinese: 子; Traditional Chinese: 子; Pinyin: zǐ) - a respectful title for a male - as the first character of the disyllabic zi. Thus, for example, Gongsun Qiao's zi was (子产), and Du Fu's Zimei (子美).
It is also possible to construct a zi by using as the first character one which expresses the bearer's birth order among male siblings in his family. Thus Confucius, whose Chinese name was Kong Qiu, who was the second son in his family, was given the zi Zhongni (仲尼), where the first character zhong indicates that he was the second brother.
The use of zi began sometime during the Shang Dynasty and slowly developed into a system, which became most widespread during the succeeding Zhou Dynasty . During this period, women were also given zi. The zi given to a woman was generally composed of a character indicating her birth order among females siblings and her surname.
Prior to the 20th century, sinicized Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese were also referred to by their zi.
The zi of some famous people:
- Confucius
- Family name: Kong
- Given name: Qiu
- Zi: Zhongni
- Zhuge Liang
- Family name: Zhuge
- Given name: Liang
- Zi: Kongming
- Li Bai
- Family name: Li
- Given name: Bai
- Zi: Taibai
- Sun Zhongshan
- Family name: Sun
- Given name: Wen
- Zi: Zaizhi
- Mao Zedong
- Family name: Mao
- Given name: Zedong
- Zi: Runzhi
- Yang Guo
- Family name: Yang
- Given name: Guo
- Zi: Gaizhi
Hao
| Chinese style name | |
|---|---|
| Chinese name | |
| Traditional Chinese: | 號 |
| Simplified Chinese: | 号 |
| Hanyu Pinyin: | hào |
| Wade-Giles: | hao |
| Japanese name | |
| Kanji (Shinjitai): | 号 |
| Kanji (Kyūjitai): | 號 |
| Kana (Modern kana usage): | ごう |
| Kana (Historical kana usage): | がう |
| Rōmaji: | gō |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul: | 호 |
| Hanja: | 號 |
| Revised Romanization: | ho |
| McCune-Reischauer: | ho |
Hao (Simplified Chinese: 号; Traditional Chinese: 號; Pinyin: hào; Japanese gō; Korean: ho) is an alternative courtesy name, usually referred to as the pseudonym. It was most commonly three or four characters long, and may have originally became popular due to people having the same zi. A hao was usually self-selected and it was possible to have more than one. It had no connection with the bearer's ming or zi; rather it was often a very personal, sometimes whimsical, choice perhaps embodying an allusion or containing a rare character, as might befit an educated literatus. Another possibility was to use the name of one's residence as one's hao; thus Su Shi's hao Dongpo Jushi (i.e., 'Resident of Dongpo' ('Eastern slope'), a residence he built while in exile). An author's hao was also often used in the title of his collected works.