elizaberth Posted June 30, 2004 at 05:40 AM Report Posted June 30, 2004 at 05:40 AM hey there, can anyone tell me why ancient chinese have so many names? example: in san guo yan yi, zhu ge liang has another name called kong ming, cao cao has another name called cao meng de, guan yu has another name called guan yun chang,etc is it a trend to have nicknames? Quote
galitonwu Posted June 30, 2004 at 06:04 AM Report Posted June 30, 2004 at 06:04 AM 诸葛亮 姓：诸葛 名：亮 字：孔明 I don't know how to translate "字" correctly. Quote
elizaberth Posted July 1, 2004 at 08:37 AM Author Report Posted July 1, 2004 at 08:37 AM zhu ge liang also has another name, 'ZHU GE WO LONG' anyway, I love their names because they sound smart Quote
galitonwu Posted July 1, 2004 at 03:35 PM Report Posted July 1, 2004 at 03:35 PM Yes, I like it too. But there is few person use that kind of name "字" now. Quote
Xuan Yuan Posted July 1, 2004 at 08:49 PM Report Posted July 1, 2004 at 08:49 PM 字is a name given to a child by his/her parents when reaching adulthood. Only very close friend or relative have the privilage calling a person by 字. 字usualy is associated with the name. For example, Liang in Zhu Ge Liang means light and Kong Ming means bright., Quote
xuechengfeng Posted July 1, 2004 at 09:57 PM Report Posted July 1, 2004 at 09:57 PM Usually they are allegorical names, at least this is the case in modern Chinese lit. Quote
channamasala Posted July 1, 2004 at 10:01 PM Report Posted July 1, 2004 at 10:01 PM You do realize that this nothing compared to Indian literature where everyone has six or so names, all of them are about four-eight syllables long and in the case of one book, half of them are "Krishna"... Quote
galitonwu Posted July 2, 2004 at 06:12 AM Report Posted July 2, 2004 at 06:12 AM 汉语古代人名中的"字",是中国特有的文化现象.在英语中没有相对应的词汇．反之,有的英语词汇,在中文中也没有对应词汇. 这只是汉语和英语两种语言转换过程中常遇到的"词汇空缺现象",是由于不同的文化背景造成的. 通常情况下是将此忽略不翻，如果硬要翻的话， 据我所知,"字"的翻译有两种方式: 1,用拼音形式.e.g, Zhuge liang, his surname is Zhuge,his name is Liang, and his Zi is Kongming. 2.可翻成style(v). e,g. Zhuge Liang, styled Kongming. Quote
elizaberth Posted July 2, 2004 at 10:30 AM Author Report Posted July 2, 2004 at 10:30 AM You do realize that this nothing compared to Indian literature where everyone has six or so names, all of them are about four-eight syllables long and in the case of one book, half of them are "Krishna"... nah, i don't have to realize that coz i am not interested Quote
channamasala Posted July 2, 2004 at 10:58 AM Report Posted July 2, 2004 at 10:58 AM Heh. I see that not only are you interested, but you are also friendly and you enjoy expanding your horizons. Quote
shibo77 Posted July 2, 2004 at 05:06 PM Report Posted July 2, 2004 at 05:06 PM I thought that it might be translated like Latin. praenomen, nomen, cognomen. 姓xìng 名míng 字zì In addition, there is another name called 小名xiaoming -minor name, which is used by older family members or maybe close friends when the person is still a minor. I'm sure 诸葛亮 would have had one himself. The convention varies in different regions, but are usually prefixed. 小.., 阿... Namaskar! Kia haal haiN? Aap kaa nam channamasala haiN? Mera nam Shìbó huuN. Aap "come from" Bharatavarsha haiN? Sorry, that was Urdu, but I thought it might be very close. Right traditional Indian are really long. I know very little of Hinduism, but it seems to me that they are a bunch of Gods smashed together. Like my friend Ravichandran A. Ramakrishnan. There's your Rama and your Krishna... I thought the Hindu didn't have names like European names, but they had to make one up. Now you get so many people wanting to be Khans "kings", and all the Sikhs becoming Singhs. Their names are as long as the Roman names, clan name, tribe name, please explain, and enlighten ala Sukriya! -Shibo Quote
channamasala Posted July 2, 2004 at 05:44 PM Report Posted July 2, 2004 at 05:44 PM It's very close... My Tamil is much better than my Hindi though. I never studied Hindi. It's generally words in Sanskrit/Arabic that have special meanings interspersed with names of gods. That's for regular names. Last names are often professions or gods. Like you could have Shiv Chettiyar or something in the south, Shiv being after the god Shiva and Chettiyar being his caste/profession. Ooooold southern names like Pandian an Nayak too. Local names - half of Madurai's women are named Meenakshi (the fish-eyed goddess, a tale of local lore). But let's stick to epics, as the discussion is on Chinese epic nicknames. Having read both the Three Kingdoms and the Mahabharata, Dream of the Red Chamber AND the Ramayana, I can compare a little. But I really hated Three Kingdoms, to be honest. That's what I tried to do - note how the Chinese epics give alternate character names one way and Indian epics another way...the female heroine of The Mahabharata was Draupadi, after her father Drupada, and she was also known as Krishnaa for her dark skin, not to be confused with Krishna the god who counsels Arjuna on the battlefield who also has three other names that he enumerates when he shows Arjuna his true divine form. Sita, wife of Ram, is also known as Janaki, daughter of Janaka...and by quite a few epithets as Draupadi is ("lotus eyed one, dark woman, beauty of the Pandavas"...) Anyway...now I'm starting to not care... Quote
shibo77 Posted July 2, 2004 at 06:05 PM Report Posted July 2, 2004 at 06:05 PM Vanakkam then! I like the look of Tamil lettre "I" by the way... Anyway...now I'm starting to not care... Then my job is done... -Shibo Quote
channamasala Posted July 2, 2004 at 06:14 PM Report Posted July 2, 2004 at 06:14 PM ...only when it's at the beginning of a word. Otherwise all non-initial Tamil vowels are written as funky additions to the consonant. I will admit that it took me a week of practice to learn to write a decent Tamil initial "I". It's all looopy-loopy-littleloopy-looopedee-loopy. Quote
skylee Posted July 2, 2004 at 11:18 PM Report Posted July 2, 2004 at 11:18 PM Besides 姓, 名, 字, people also used to have 號 (an extra name adopted by a person himself). For example, the great poet 蘇軾's surname was 蘇, his given name was 軾, his 字 was 子瞻, his 號 was 東坡居士 (thus 蘇東坡). Another example is Dr Sun Yat-sen, whose given name was 文, his 字 was 德明, his 號 was 日新 later changed to 逸仙 (thus 孫逸仙). IIRC, 臥龍先生 is Zhuge's 號. This is from Wikipedia. Quote
elizaberth Posted July 3, 2004 at 03:16 AM Author Report Posted July 3, 2004 at 03:16 AM Another example is Dr Sun Yat-sen, whose given name was 文, his 字 was 德明, his 號 was 日新 later changed to 逸仙 (thus 孫逸仙). Thankyou babe, and the list goes on... oh my, I am so fascinated by chinese names. Quote
ananda Posted July 5, 2004 at 05:35 AM Report Posted July 5, 2004 at 05:35 AM There's a name-standardization during the reign of WangMang(8~23) between two Han dynasties, it's 姓+名(often one character)+字(always description of 名), for example, 诸葛+亮+孔明, 张+飞+翼德, 赵+云+子龙, 关 +羽+云长, so 姓+名 often equals 姓+字, except that 姓+字 is often called by his friends, 号 can be treated as good nickname which was called by himself, his friends or someone else. Quote
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