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Chinese Names Mirror Changes, Cause Problems

Even as the Chinese were eating moon cakes to celebrate the Moon Festival (the 15th day of the eighth lunar month or September 25, 2007), news came from the Ministry of Public Security that in this country with a population of 1.3 billion, there were 17 citizens––all female––named after Chang’e, the Moon Goddess. Legend goes that Chang’e broke away with her husband, Hou Yi, and flew to the moon after taking a magic elixir, where she settled as an immortal. The Moon Goddess however has to endure untold loneliness as her only companions are a pure white rabbit and a male immortal named Wu Gang. Believe it or not, there is no romance between Chang’e and Wu Gang, even though they are lonely, since they are only “lunar inhabitants.”

“Gang,” meaning “strong in character,” is the given name of more than 30,000 male citizens with the family name “Wu,” according to the ministry. Nevertheless, no one has been found to have the name “Hou Yi.” No wonder. The guy is a tyrant. It may be interesting to note that most of the 17 “Chang’es” are infant girls born in 2006, the year when China made public its moon exploration project called “Chang’e.”

The full name of a Han Chinese consists of two parts: the first part is the family name and second part, the given name. In comparison, the arrangement of a typical western full name is just the opposite. In the West, most given names––John, Charles, David, Catherine––are nothing but symbols. In China, virtually all given names carry a message. More often than not, given names express the expectations of parents for their children and there are also given names that are commemorative of events important for the families.

From “Revolutionary Names” to “Reform Era Names”

Chinese society has changed almost beyond recognition over the decades. So have peopleís names. In old times, a woman would most likely lose her own name after marrying into another family. Take for example the author’s mother, who died 25 years ago and who would have been 93 this year. The day she married into our family, she got the new name “Li Teng Shi,” which simply means “a woman from a family of Teng who has married into a family of Li.” Likewise, the author’s grandmother was known as “Li Huang Shi,” suggesting that she had been from a Huang family and was now a member of a Li family. It was not until after China’s first Marriage Law was promulgated in 1952 that they were able to use the names given them by their parents.

Chinese Communist veterans liked to name their children “Jianguo” (birth of New China), “Kangsheng” (born during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression) or “Jingsheng” (born in Beijing, capital of New China). Among people born in the early 1950s, many have “patriotic names” ––names suggesting support for Chinese troops in their fight against the Americans in Korea. The author’s brother-in-law, for example, is named “Yuanxian” ––“donating (money) to the war effort. In the late 1950s, Chairman Mao Zedong kicked off the so-called “Great Leap Forward Movement” in hope of turning China into a communist paradise overnight. Among people born during the movement, a lot have names such as “Yuejin” (big leap forward); “Chaoying” (“surpassing Britain,” a call of Mao Zedong on the Chinese people to work hard so that China could surpass Britain in economic development); “Tiantang” (paradise); “Gongshe” (commune) and others.

Then the Cultural Revolution (1966––76) broke out, a chaotic period. “Cultural Revolution names” are characterized by a kind of “revolutionary zeal” such as “Hong” (red, the colour of revolution), “Hongjun” (red army) and “Hongwei” (red guard). There were also names inspired by the personality cult for Mao Zedong such as “Weidong” (defend Mao Zedong), “Aiddong” (love Mao Zedong) and “Jingdong” (respect for Mao Zedong). 

In contrast, names of China’s economic reform era often reflect the desires of parents to see their children rich or at least well off and heading toward a successful adult life. After Deng Xiaoping took over the helm in the late 1970s and advanced the policy of allowing a few to get rich first, not a few babies born shortly afterwards were named “Zhifu” (strive to be rich), “Fugui” (prosperity and prominence in society) and “Maofu” (to get rich overnight or never hesitate to get rich).

Foreign influence is evident with China’s opening to the outside world and its embrace of globalization. Among youngsters born over the past decade, some have names “borrowed” from English or Japanese names––for example, Li Dawei (David Li), Wang Mali (Marry Wang), Liu Shanben (Yamamoto Liu). By tradition, Chinese children inherit the names of their fathers’ families. The tradition is being broken as increasing numbers of children have adopted the family names of their mothers. There are even “new double surnames,” names that combine the surnames of both parents, testifying, in a way, to heightened awareness of gender equality. The author has a student whose name is Xuyang Jingjing––“Xu” being her father’s surname and “Yang” her mother’s.

Most ethnic Chinese family names have just one character, like Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li. “New double names” are new, relative to about 50 “traditional double names” that have two characters each, such as Ouyang, Shangguan and Zhuge. 

Duplicated Names––A Social Dilemma 

“Borrowed” and “new double names” have cropped up in part to overcome a social dilemma, which may never have been experienced by any western country. The dilemma results from the duplication of names, from a social phenomenon in which too many people have the same names. This state of affairs often forces parents to find “unique” names for their children. There are people who have been so “innovative” as to name their children according to the English alphabetic order. One farmer named Liu in Hunan Province, for example, calls his three children Liu A, Liu B and Liu C.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, China has nearly 300,000 people named Zhang Wei (wei meaning “great”) and more than 280,000 share the name Wang Wei. One percent of the Chinese population, or 1.3 million people, are named Liu Bo––meaning Liu the waves. There is a joke in China that if you call out a popular name––Liu Bo, Zhang Wei, Wang Lan––in the street, several people will turn around. Xinhua, the state news agency, has reported that in one class at a primary school in Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province, there were three boys with the name Ma Jun. When asking one of them to answer a question, the teacher has to call “Da Ma Jun” (Ma Jun the oldest), “Xiao Ma Jun” (Ma Jun the youngest) or “Zhong Ma Jun” (Ma Jun the second oldest).

Duplicated names may also cause embarrassment. The first day a young man in the same city reported to the university he had just been admitted in, Xinhua reported, he was assigned to the women’s dormitory because he had a most popular name for women––Liu Fang, or “Liu the Graceful.”

Anecdotes like these may be amusing, but can be no joke in real life. One evening in May 2007, a man named Wang Qibo was about to retire for the night when police broke into his hotel room in Shenyang, Northeast China, handcuffed him and took him away, alleging that he was an escaped criminal and was wanted on order of the Ministry of Public Security. At the police station the poor man repeatedly asserted his innocence, saying that he was from Tianjin, North China, and was staying in Shenyang for business. He was released ten hours afterwards, when the police, through numerous telephone calls, became absolutely sure that they had arrested a wrong person. The Shenyang Daily reported that the wanted person was also named Wang Qibo. Coincidentally, he was of the same age as the innocent Wang Qibo and that both men were of the same height and had identical appearance.

There have also been press reports about how people risk the danger of losing their lives for having the same names as others. Accompanied by her mother, 9-year-old Wang Lan (Wang Lan-A), who was suffering from acute enteritis in Yining, a city in West China, was taken to the outpatient department of a local hospital. Another woman, Wang Lan (Wang Lan-B), in her 30s, was also there for treatment of heart disease. In response to the call “Ma Lan” from the pharmacy, Wang Lan-A’s mother instantly rushed forward and in a confusion, was issued the heart-treatment drugs prescribed for Wang Lan-B. Before long, the pharmacist found that he had made a mistake that could be fatal to Wang Lan-A, and he promptly reported what he had done to the police. The police immediately began searching their computer system to locate Wang Lan-A, from among the 229 residents in the city––men and women, old and young––who had the same name, Wang Lan. Fortunately, back at home the mother found she had received the wrong medicine. According to Xinhua, Yining, with a population of 430,000, has 350 people named Ma Jun, 167 named Li Jun, 158 named Wang Jun, 79 named Wang Gang, in addition to their 229 Wang Lans.

In Search of Remedies

While having a lot to do with the ups and downs of society, the duplication of Chinese names is also attributed to the fact that surnames are too few relative to so vast a population.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, more about 4,000 surnames are being used by the ethnic Han Chinese who account for about 93 percent of China’s national population, but a little more than 100 names are shared by one billion people. The most popular surnames are Wang, Li, Zhang and Liu. “If all the 93 million Wangs in China were to form their own country, it would be the world’s 12th most populous nation,” the US TIME Magazine reported. “The 88 million Zhangs could eat every crumb of the UN’s World Food Programme, distributed annually to people in 82 countries.”

Li is shared by 93 million people, the same as Wang, and Zhang, by 80 million. Seven other surnames, including Chen, Zhou and Lin, each are held by at least 20 million Chinese. In contrast, 2,800 names are classified as “rare,” each held by fewer than 120,000 citizens, roughly by one in every 10,000.

It seems the use of “new double names” is the only solution the authorities can conceive right now, as the parents of Xuyang Jingjing’s have done. According to a set of draft regulations prepared by the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, parents will be able to combine their surnames, opening up 1.28 million new possibilities. A father named Zhou and a mother called Zhu could call their child either Zhouzhu or Zhuzhou.

It is not known how much public support the new regulations will receive, but opposition can be heard. “I don't think it's a good idea to create more surnames,” Yelan, from Gansu Province, wrote in a message to the TIME Magazine Web site. “A surname is like something that you could trace the roots back to your ancestors. Most Chinese are proud of their surnames.”

Another Chinese, “Iris from Brighton,” says there is no need to create new names. “For us, the Chinese people, surnames all have special meanings and have history in them.”

As regards duplicated given names, Yelan says that Chinese parents “are very creative and imaginative in giving (their children) names. There are up to 7,000 commonly used Chinese characters, which give them countless possibilities.”

What Yelan says is incorrect. ìCommonly usedî Chinese characters are far from being that many. The fact is that computers can read only about 4,000 characters and the rest, roughly of the same number, are rarely used. The police have time and again advised citizens not to use “rarely used characters” to name their children to avoid complications in residence registration.