This post has been a long time coming. In spring 2020, I posted two of the most popular posts on this blog:
Reading Chinese Names: Female Names
Reading Chinese Names: Male Names
More recently I have wanted to revisit the idea behind those posts but with a different, more in-depth approach. I also made some decisions while compiling data for those posts that I now regret. So in late summer 2021, I set out to completely redo my data collection with the eventual goal of creating this very post.
About the Data
I will include more information about my data collection process at the end of this post for those interested.
I gathered 3,277 names (1602 male, 1675 female) from idol shows and groups. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a lot of names at all. But I think it's enough that we can explore names, observe some generalities, and have fun! These names belong to individuals roughly 15-30 years old. Most names belong to individuals from Mainland China, but there are some Hong Konger and Taiwanese names as well.
Some of the name sources include:
偶像练习生/青春有你
创造101/创造营
明日之子
以团之名/少年之名
SNH48
快乐女声/快乐男声
菱格世代DD52
Various groups like 时代少年 and SING女团
I also wanted to note something important: the definitions I am using (via MDBG) are only the surface. For example, a name containing a character meaning jade might also have implications of beauty and virtue. So the meaning is more than just "jade." However, it just isn't practical to go into all the nitty gritty here. I encourage you to seek out more resources if you are interested.
Some Thanks
Thanks so much to @liu-anhuaming, @meichenxi, and my friend Tiffany for their help and advice during the process of creating this post! 非常感谢你们，你们是最棒的！
Given Names (Overall)
First let's look at the most common characters for ALL the given names in the dataset. There were 1093 total unique characters across all the given names. I'm going to include more characters (almost rounding out the top 100) at the bottom of this post for those interested. There is also some information broken down by gender below.
Top Given Name Characters
宇 yǔ - room, universe / 87
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 82
佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 68
雨 yǔ - rain / 63
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 59
泽 zé - pool, pond, (of metals etc) luster, favor or beneficence, damp, moist / 43
琪 qí - fine jade / 40
婷 tíng - graceful / 39
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 38
晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 35
浩 hào - grand, vast (water) / 35
晨 chén - morning, dawn, daybreak / 34
恩 ēn - favor, grace, kindness / 33
博 bó - extensive, ample, rich, obtain, aim, to win, to get, plentiful / 32
慧 huì - intelligent / 32
明 míng - bright, clear, to understand, wise / 32
轩 xuān - pavilion with a view, high, tall / 32
辰 chén - 5th earthly branch, 3rd solar month, year of the Dragon, ancient Chinese compass point / 32
Top Given Name Characters (Female)
佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 56
雨 yǔ - rain / 50
欣 xīn - happy / 49
怡 yí - harmony, pleased / 44
婷 tíng - graceful / 39
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 37
琪 qí - fine jade / 35
思 sī - to think, to consider / 33
慧 huì - intelligent / 31
梦 mèng - dream, to dream / 30
Top Given Name Characters (Male)
宇 yǔ - room, universe / 68
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 55
There were 668 single-character names, which is about 20% of the total names. I know that 单名 are pretty rare in Taiwan (I'm not sure about Hong Kong), so that's something to keep in mind. More of the top 单名 are at the bottom of this post.
Top Single-Character Names
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 12
欣 xīn - happy / 10
洋 yáng - ocean, vast, foreign, silver dollar or coin / 9
静 jìng - still, calm, quiet, not moving / 7
丹 dān - red, pellet, powder, cinnabar / 6
娜 nà - graceful, elegant, beautiful / 6
恩 ēn - favor, grace, kindness / 6
敏 mǐn - quick, nimble, agile, clever, smart / 6
昕 xīn - dawn / 6
雪 xuě - snow / 6
颖 yǐng - head of grain, husk, tip, point, clever, gifted, outstanding / 6
Female Single-Character Names
欣 xīn - happy / 9
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 8
静 jìng - still, calm, quiet, not moving / 7
丹 dān - red, pellet, powder, cinnabar / 6
娜 nà - graceful, elegant, beautiful / 6
敏 mǐn - quick, nimble, agile, clever, smart / 6
雪 xuě - snow / 6
倩 qiàn - pretty, winsome / 5
洁 jié - clean / 5
颖 yǐng - head of grain, husk, tip, point, clever, gifted, outstanding / 5
Male Single-Character Names
洋 yáng - ocean, vast, foreign, silver dollar or coin / 7
超 chāo - to exceed, to overtake, to surpass, to transcend, to pass, to cross, ultra, super / 4
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 4
鹏 péng - large fabulous bird / 4
Two-Character Names (双名)
For the lists below, I removed all 单名 and just looked at 双名 characters. One of the things I was most excited to examine in this post was what characters tend to be found in the first vs. second positions. As you will see reflected below, some common characters used in names tend to occur more in one position, like 子 which is more prevalent in the first position. Others are more balanced. I bolded characters appearing in both positions.
Additional top 双名 can be found at the end of this post.
Top Two-Character Names
俊杰 jùnjié / 7
佳怡 jiāyí / 5
嘉欣 jiāxīn / 5
天宇 tiānyǔ / 5
浩然 hàorán / 5
婷婷 tíngtíng / 4
子杰 zǐjié / 4
安琪 ānqí / 4
Top First Characters
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 72
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 49
佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 48
思 sī - to think, to consider / 44
一 yī - one, 1, single, a (article), as soon as, entire, whole, all, throughout / 40
俊 jùn - smart, eminent, handsome, talented / 40
雨 yǔ - rain / 36
天 tiān - day, sky, heaven / 34
宇 yǔ - room, universe / 34
晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 34
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 54
俊 jùn - smart, eminent, handsome, talented / 35
一 yī - one, 1, single, a (article), as soon as, entire, whole, all, throughout / 26
浩 hào - grand, vast (water) / 24
泽 zé - pool, pond, (of metals etc) luster, favor or beneficence, damp, moist / 22
宇 yǔ - room, universe / 20
明 míng - bright, clear, to understand, wise / 20
天 tiān - day, sky, heaven / 19
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 18
泽 zé - pool, pond, (of metals etc) luster, favor or beneficence, damp, moist / 14
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 14
龙 lóng - dragon, imperial / 14
Comparing Characters by Position
After examining the most popular characters by position, I was curious to look more specifically at which characters appear in one position but not the other. In this section I decided not to include lists separated by gender because it was getting to be too much information.
Exclusively First Characters
Below are the top characters that never appeared in the second position.
晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 34
小 xiǎo - small, tiny, few, young / 24
紫 zǐ - purple, violet / 16
美 měi - beautiful, very satisfactory, good, to beautify, to be pleased with oneself / 15
若 ruò - to seem, like, as if / 14
智 zhì - wisdom, knowledge / 13
书 shū - book, letter, document, to write / 11
婉 wǎn - graceful, tactful / 11
振 zhèn - to shake, to flap, to vibrate, to resonate, to rise up with spirit, to rouse oneself / 11
永 yǒng - forever, always, perpetual / 11
秋 qiū - autumn, fall, harvest time / 11
Largest Deltas (First Position)
I also wanted to see characters that were found in both positions but for which there was a big difference in occurrence. I bolded characters that appeared both here and in the list above.
The math is formatted:
# times first position - # times second position = difference
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 72 - 10 = 62
思 sī - to think, to consider / 44 - 4 = 40
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 49 - 10 = 39
晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 34 - 0 = 34
佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 48 - 15 = 33
一 yī - one, 1, single, a (article), as soon as, entire, whole, all, throughout / 40 - 9 = 31
This section is more experimental and exploratory. There are probably better ways to examine the gender association for characters, but I just wanted to take a quick look for fun, not develop a whole new analysis technique.
Gender Neutral Characters
Here I simply took the average of the ranks of each character for male names and female names. If a character was only found in male names or only found in female names, it would just end up with the overall rank of N/A.
The math is formatted:
(Female names rank + male names rank) ÷ 2 = average rank
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point
(12th + 2nd) ÷ 2 = 7th (82 times)
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend
(6th + 18th) ÷ 2 = 12th (59 times)
For this section, I looked at characters in female names that did not appear in male names. This isn't a perfect technique, but I think it is still interesting to see the results.
依 yī - to depend on, to comply with or listen to sb, according to, in the light of / 35th (17 times)
妍 yán - beautiful / 36th (17 times)
媛 yuán - beautiful / 40th (16 times)
月 yuè - moon, month / 41st (16 times)
紫 zǐ - purple, violet / 43rd (16 times)
Male-Leaning Characters
Likewise, for this section I chose characters that appeared in male names but not female names. I actually know women with 龙 and 伟 in their names, so it's important to remember that leaning male =/= only found in men's names. There are always exceptions!
豪 háo - grand, heroic / 3rd (48 times)
浩 hào - grand, vast (water) / 7th (35 times)
龙 lóng - dragon, imperial / 28th (17 times)
伟 wěi - big, large, great / 36th (14 times)
峻 jùn - (of mountains) high, harsh or severe / 38th (13 times)
成 chéng - to succeed, to finish, to complete, to accomplish, to become, to turn into, to be all right, one tenth / 48th (12 times)
振 zhèn - to shake, to flap, to vibrate, to resonate, to rise up with spirit, to rouse oneself / 53rd (11 times)
飞 fēi - to fly / 54th (11 times)
While looking at gender was fun, in the future I'd really like to look at tones/tone combinations, open vs. close syllables, and more. I'm still thinking about the best way to do this.
Surnames
Since surname rankings are actually known, I thought it would be interesting to briefly compare my dataset to the true populations.
Top Surnames
李 Lǐ / 240
王 Wáng / 206
张 Zhāng / 186
陈 Chén / 173
刘 Liú / 147
杨 Yáng / 94
林 Lín / 91
黄 Huáng / 88
周 Zhōu / 69
徐 Xú / 66
Mainland Top Surnames
李 Lǐ
王 Wáng
张 Zhāng
刘 Liú
陈 Chén
杨 Yáng
赵 Zhào
黄 Huáng
周 Zhōu
吴 Wú
Taiwan Top Surnames
陈 Chén
林 Lín
黄 Huáng
张 Zhāng
李 Lǐ
王 Wáng
吴 Wú
刘 Liú
蔡 Cài
杨 Yáng
What stood out to me most was 林 making #7 on my list. I suspect this is due to the inclusion of Taiwanese names. In Mainland China it actually ranks around #16 I believe. 赵 didn't make the top 10, but I think it was actually #11, so that's not too far off.
About the Data Cont'
For my original posts 1.5 years ago, I had difficulty maintaining a gender balance and decided to add male names from other types of sources as a supplement. I have since regretted that choice, so this time I worked hard to maintain balance without using unrelated sources. One result of this is that there are names in the original dataset that do not appear in this dataset, so even though the new dataset has more names, it's possible that there could be fewer occurrences of some characters.
I did my best to remove duplicate individuals (not duplicate names!) and remove stage names that do not sound like real names (or replace them with real names). However, I did not try to swap out all stage names for birth names because that would have been too difficult and time consuming. I also made the assumption that any four-character name could be segmented into two surname characters and two given name characters.
It's important to note that these names are not necessarily representative of the 15-30 population as a whole. Idols or trainees might change their names to something sounding more cool or hip, and like I mentioned, it simply wasn't feasible for me to find everyone's birth name. And my data collection didn't take into account things like geography/population spread or keep track of ages (but I did for the most part avoid any shows older than 5 years and groups with members 30+).
Extended Lists
Top Given Name Characters
28 星 xīng - star, heavenly body / 31
29 梦 mèng - dream, to dream / 31
30 倩 qiàn - pretty, winsome / 29
31 涵 hán - to contain, to include, culvert / 29
32 艺 yì - skill, art / 29
33 雅 yǎ - elegant / 29
34 雪 xuě - snow / 29
35 君 jūn - monarch, lord, gentleman, ruler / 28
36 翔 xiáng - to soar, to glide / 27
37 霖 lín - continued rain / 27
38 哲 zhé - wise, a sage / 26
39 梓 zǐ - Catalpa kaempferi (type of tree), printing blocks / 26
40 羽 yǔ - feather, 5th note in pentatonic scale / 26
41 诗 shī - poem, poetry, verse / 26
42 凯 kǎi - triumphant, victorious / 25
43 家 jiā - home, family / 24
44 小 xiǎo - small, tiny, few, young / 24
45 洋 yáng - ocean, vast, foreign, silver dollar or coin / 24
46 铭 míng - to engrave, inscribed motto / 24
47 奕 yì - abundant, graceful / 23
48 柏 bó - cedar, cypress / 23
49 静 jìng - still, calm, quiet, not moving / 23
50 馨 xīn - fragrant / 23
51 丹 dān - red, pellet, powder, cinnabar / 22
52 安 ān - content, calm, still, quiet, safe, secure, in good health, to pacify, to harbor (good intentions), security, safety, peace / 22
53 洁 jié - clean / 22
54 然 rán - correct, right, so, thus, like this / 22
55 瑶 yáo - jade, precious stone, mother-of-pearl, nacre, precious / 22
56 心 xīn - heart, mind, intention, center, core / 21
57 扬 yáng - to raise, to hoist, scattering (in the wind), to flutter / 21
58 玉 yù - jade / 21
59 阳 yáng - sun, male principle / 21
60 源 yuán - root, source, origin / 20
61 琦 qí - curio, valuable stone / 20
62 瑞 ruì - lucky, auspicious, propitious, rayl / 20
63 莹 yíng - luster of gems / 20
64 丽 lì - beautiful / 19
65 宁 níng - peaceful, to pacify / 19
66 语 yǔ - dialect, language, speech / 19
67 云 yún - cloud / 18
68 敏 mǐn - quick, nimble, agile, clever, smart / 18
69 琳 lín - gem / 18
70 睿 ruì - astute, perspicacious, farsighted / 18
71 菲 fēi - luxuriant (plant growth), rich with fragrance / 18
72 辉 huī - splendor, to shine upon / 18
73 颖 yǐng - head of grain, husk, tip, point, clever, gifted, outstanding / 18
74 依 yī - to depend on, to comply with or listen to sb, according to, in the light of / 17
75 妍 yán - beautiful / 17
76 希 xī - to hope, to admire / 17
77 昊 hào - vast and limitless, the vast sky / 17
78 超 chāo - to exceed, to overtake, to surpass, to transcend, to pass, to cross, ultra, super / 17
79 龙 lóng - dragon, imperial / 17
80 东 dōng - east , host / 16
81 凡 fán - ordinary, commonplace, mundane, temporal, of the mortal world, all, whatever, altogether, gist, outline, note of Chinese musical scale / 16
82 媛 yuán - beautiful / 16
83 宏 hóng - great, magnificent / 16
84 志 zhì - aspiration, ambition, the will / 16
85 昕 xīn - dawn / 16
86 月 yuè - moon, month / 16
87 瑜 yú - excellence, luster of gems / 16
88 紫 zǐ - purple, violet / 16
89 航 háng - boat, ship, craft, to navigate, to sail, to fly / 16
90 钰 yù - treasure, hard metal / 16
91 雯 wén - multicolored clouds / 16
92 元 yuán - currency unit, first, original, primary, fundamental, constituent, part, era / 15
93 廷 tíng - palace courtyard / 15
94 承 chéng - to bear, to carry, to hold, to continue, to undertake, to take charge, owing to, due to, to receive / 15
95 晴 qíng - clear, fine (weather) / 15
96 美 měi - beautiful, very satisfactory, good, to beautify, to be pleased with oneself / 15
97 言 yán - words, speech, to say, to talk / 15
98 逸 yì - to escape, leisurely, outstanding / 15
Well, if you made it to the end, congratulations! You are a brave soul. But seriously, thanks so much for reading all of this monster of a post. I hope you leave knowing at least a bit more about Chinese names.
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