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Chinese Name

 The names of Chinese people contain its own tradition and characteristics. Unlike westerners, Chinese people always put their family name first and followed by their given name. What's more Interesting is a feme covert still reserve her surname and does not use her husband's family name as westerners. Chinese given name always contains one or two chinese characters, but in order to avoid confusion between namesakes, more and more parents give their newborn baby a name of three characters.
 
Given Name
 
When choosing a name, Chinese people will pay attention to both its meaning and form. And the name also have a distinction between sexes. Men's names usually use sagacity and farsightedness words, generally with masculinity. But the women's names often with the kind of beautiful, virtuous, lovely image. Some given names expressing the best wishes and expectations of the parents on their new-born kids, like gui(rich), kang (healthy); Some embody the hope of virtue, like Zhong (faithful), Yi (righteous), Li (courteous) and Xin (reliable); some imply the birthplace, birth time or natural phenomenon, like jing(beijing), chen(morning), yu(rain); some named of flowers and other plants, like mei (plum blossom ) which means beautiful in chinese, they are always use in girls' names. Some named of historical events. This is mainly prevalent in the contemporary,like jiefang(liberation),Perhaps it is the greatest feature of the Chinese name.
 
Family Name
 
China's surnames have more than 5,000 years of history. There is a total of 4100 surnames in China. Altogether Chinese own more than 22,000 family names have been used but as time goes by, some of them have become reserved and only 3,500 are commonly used nowadays. The most popular three surnames in China are Li, Wang and Zhang, respectively occupying about 7.9%, 7.6% and 7.1% of the whole Chinese population. There are 270 million Chinese people who own one of these top three surnames.

Among all the Chinese family names, 100 common ones cover almost 87% of the total population. Of these, 19 are more popular than others, including Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Zhao, Huang, Zhou, Wu, Xu, Sun, Hu, Zhu, Gao, Lin, He, Guo and Ma, and represent about half of the whole Chinese people.

In addition to these single-surnames, some Chinese people have compound surnames which consist of two Chinese characters, like Ou Yang, Tai Shi, Duan Mu, Shang Guan, Si Ma, Dong Fang, Du Gu, Nan Gong and others. Now there are almost 81 compound surnames existing in China.

All Chinese people have equal rights to use their own names, which are legally protected. Generally speaking, a child is always entitled to the surname of his father. However, children nowadays in China do not have to use their father's surname; they can also adopt their mother's family name. Nicknames are often called in their childhood or by their confidants.

 
Addressing Chinese People
 
Of course it is considered to be polite and respectful to address a Chinese people by his/her surname, followed by honorific titles like Xian1 Sheng1 (Sir), Nv3 Shi4 (Madam) or the job position like Zhu3 Xi2(President), Jing1 Li3(Manager), Zong3 Li3(Minister). Given names are often called between good friends. Xiao3 Jie4 nowadays is considered to be an offensive way to address Chinese young ladies.

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