中國傳統文化 第32期:中國人姓名

Chinese Personal Names

中國人姓名

A modern Chinese usually has a surname(“family name”) and a given name(“first name or“Christian name”) always in that order.

現代中國人的姓名通常由姓(家庭姓氏)和名(個人所起的名字)組成，並且姓在前，名在後。

Thus Deng Xiaoping is Mr. Deng with the personal name Xiaoping the same way John Jones is Mr. Jones with the personal name John.

因此，鄧小平被稱爲鄧先生，個人的名字爲小平。正如約翰·瓊斯被稱爲瓊斯先生，個人的名字爲約翰。

In ancient China，however, naming was very complicated and one person usually had several names，and naming involved xing，shi，ming，and of these four words meant a different thing.

在中國古代，起名非常複雜一個人可以有好幾個名字，包括姓、氏、名、字，每一個都表達不同的意思。

Xing and shi together formed today’s sur-name，and ming and zi today’s given name. Today，people use xingshi to refer to a person’s surname，mingzi to refer to one’s given name.

姓和氏演變爲現在的姓，名和字則演變爲現在的名、所以現在人們通常用姓氏來指一個人的姓，用名字來指一個人所起的名。

Study of ancient Chinese documents shows that xing originally referred to the names of different matriarchal also had something to do with the place where people lived.

據對中國古代文獻的研究表明，“姓”最初被用來指不同的女氏族長部落，和人們的居住地也有某些關係。

Researches show That xing came into being during the matrilin-eal society period，i. e.，around four to five thousand years ago.

研究表明，“姓”出現於母系社會時期，大約四千至五千年之前。

Nearly always the family name(surname)is one-syllable long. The only com-mon modern surnames that are two-syllables long are ouyang and Sma.

幾乎所有家庭的姓都是一個音節，常見的兩個音節的姓有歐陽、司馬等。