Chinese Names: How They Work, with 60 Popular Names and Meanings

沉浸 TeamAugust 16, 20265 min read

Chinese names run in the opposite order from Western ones: the family name comes first, then the given name. So in 王小明 (Wáng Xiǎomíng), 王 is the surname and 小明 is the given name, and calling him "Mr. Xiaoming" is the classic beginner mistake. This guide covers how Chinese names are built, what they mean, how to address people politely, and dozens of popular names with their meanings, plus how to pick a Chinese name of your own.

The anatomy of a Chinese name

Surname first. Nearly always one character: 王 (Wáng), 李 (Lǐ), 张 (Zhāng). A few hundred two-character surnames exist (欧阳 Ōuyáng, 司马 Sīmǎ) but they're rare.
Given name second. One or two characters, chosen by the family for meaning and sound. Two characters is the modern norm.
No middle names. A full Chinese name is two or three characters total, and it's written and said as one unit: 李雨桐, 张伟, 陈欣怡.

Unlike English names, given names aren't picked from a fixed list. Parents build them from regular characters, so a name carries visible meaning: 志远 (Zhìyuǎn) reads as "far-reaching ambition," 欣怡 (Xīnyí) as "joyful and content." Learning to read names is one of the quiet pleasures of learning Chinese characters.

Chinese surnames: a small pool, hugely shared

China has thousands of recorded surnames, but in practice a small set dominates: the top 100 cover the great majority of the population, and the top five (王 Wáng, 李 Lǐ, 张 Zhāng, 刘 Liú, 陈 Chén) each belong to tens of millions of people. That's why the everyday word for "ordinary folks" is 老百姓 (lǎobǎixìng), literally "the old hundred surnames."

We've ranked and explained the most common ones, with their origins and Cantonese spellings, in the full Chinese surnames guide.

Popular Chinese given names (with meanings)

A sampler of names you'll meet constantly, split the way parents think about them. For the full lists, see Chinese boy names and Chinese girl names.

Common boy names

浩然 (Hàorán): vast and upright, from a classical phrase about noble spirit
宇轩 (Yǔxuān): cosmos + lofty, "dignified as the sky"
子墨 (Zǐmò): scholar's ink, a literary favorite
明轩 (Míngxuān): bright and poised
伟 (Wěi): great, mighty, a one-character classic
磊 (Lěi): three stones stacked, "open and upstanding"

Common girl names

梓涵 (Zǐhán): catalpa tree + embracing, one of the most popular names of the last decade
欣怡 (Xīnyí): joyful and at ease
诗涵 (Shīhán): poetry held within
雨桐 (Yǔtóng): rain on the parasol tree
静 (Jìng): quiet, serene
慧 (Huì): intelligent, perceptive

How to address people (the part that saves you embarrassment)

Full name is normal. Colleagues and classmates call each other by full name: 王小明, not just 小明. Short full names (two characters) are used whole almost every time.
Bare given name is intimate. Only family, close friends, and couples use it. Don't lead with it.
Title + surname is the safe default: 王老师 (Teacher Wang), 李经理 (Manager Li), 陈医生 (Doctor Chen). When in doubt, this always works.
Friendly prefixes: 老 (lǎo, "old") + surname for older peers (老王), 小 (xiǎo, "young") + surname for younger ones (小李). Both are warm, not rude.
Never call an elder by their given name. Use family terms (阿姨 āyí "auntie," 叔叔 shūshu "uncle") or titles instead.

The full etiquette picture, generation names, nicknames, and the naming taboos are in how Chinese names work.

Saying Chinese names right

Every syllable carries a tone, and getting the tone wrong can turn a name into a different word. The pinyin spellings also hide a few traps: x sounds like "sh" (Xú), q like "ch" (Qián), zh like "j" (Zhāng), and c like "ts" (Cài). We wrote a whole guide to pronouncing Chinese names, and every character page on Chenjin plays native audio, so you can hear 刘 or 陈 before you meet one.

Choosing a Chinese name for yourself

Most learners eventually want one, and there are two honest routes:

Sound-based: pick characters that echo your name's sound. David → 大伟 (Dàwěi). Quick, recognizable, sometimes clunky.
Meaning-based: start from a real surname close to yours, then choose a given name with a meaning you like, the way parents do. This produces names that feel like names.

Three rules either way: keep it two or three characters, check the tones out loud, and run it past a native speaker before it goes on anything permanent. Names full of homophone landmines (a lovely character that sounds like a losing lottery ticket) are a genre of joke in China, and you don't want to star in one.

Frequently asked questions

Which part of a Chinese name is the first name?

The "first" name in position is the family name. What English speakers call a first name (the personal, given name) comes second. 毛泽东 is surname 毛 + given name 泽东, which is why he's "Chairman Mao," not "Chairman Zedong."

Do Chinese women change their surname when they marry?

No. Women keep their surname for life, and children usually take the father's surname (taking the mother's is legal and slowly getting more common).

Why do so many Chinese people also have English names?

Convenience, mostly: an English name spares coworkers and classmates from mangling tones. It's usually self-chosen in school, which is how you end up with the occasional Cherry, Dragon, or Seven. The Chinese name stays the real, legal one.

How many characters are in a Chinese name?

Two or three, in the vast majority of cases: one surname character plus a one- or two-character given name. Four-character names (two-character surname, or both parents' surnames combined) exist but are uncommon.

Want to explore name characters properly? Create a free Chenjin account and look any character up in the dictionary: native audio, stroke-order animation, and the family of words it appears in. It's the fastest way to see what a name is made of.