Taiwanese name

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Taiwanese name
surname given name
Taiwanese POJ sìⁿ miâ
Wade-Giles hsing2 ming2
Hanzi 姓 名

A Taiwanese name generally follows the format of a Chinese name: a family name plus a given name. The majority of Taiwanese have ancestry from mainland China who arrived in multiple batches. Most family names are of Chinese origin and consist of only one character. The majority of given names consist of two characters, while others are more likely to have only one character.

Taiwanese children are usually given names selected from a pool of characters that are generally considered proper. For example, 怡, 雅, 佳, 家, 明, 嘉, 俊, 偉, 建, 志 are more frequently used than others. These characters are usually widely used in China and other Chinese-speaking parts of the world.

In some instances the name of a Taiwanese person may reflect an ethnic background. The aboriginal peoples have their own neglected naming conventions. They were required to abandon their adopted Japanese names and adopt Chinese names after World War II. Nowadays, they can legally restore their own tribal names (a process called name restitution), but few have taken advantage of this option. Not unlike Native Americans who adopted European names, these aboriginal peoples adopted Chinese names as a way of survival.

Contents

[edit] Han-Chinese names

[edit] Family names

Taiwanese family names of the Han Chinese heritage are nearly all Chinese family names, particularly of southeast Chinese subset. As such, Taiwanese family names are almost all mono-syllable, each of which consists of one traditional Chinese character. Most families still have family trees that are traceable to their origins in places such as Fujian and Guangdong, although some scholars believe some descendants of the Plains Aborigines might have fabricated their genealogy as a part of the assimilation process. The popularity distribution of family names in Taiwan as a whole differs somewhat from the distribution of names among all Han Chinese, with the family name Chen (陳) particularly common (generally about 11%). Local variations also exist.

The top ten most popular family names in Taiwan and in China share eight characters but in different order.

Top Ten in Taiwan Rank in China Pe̍h-ōe-jī Popular Spelling
陳 5 Tân Chen
林 16 Lîm Lin
黃 8 n̂g Hwang, Huang
李 1 Lí Li, Lee
張 3 Tiuⁿ Chang
王 2 Ông Wang
吳 10 Ngô͘ Wu
劉 4 Lâu Liu, Liou
蔡 ? Chhòa Tsai
楊 6 Iûⁿ Yang

One other important aspect of Taiwan was that because it was a migrant society in which disasters were common, family lineages in Taiwan have many more examples of adoption than in other Han Chinese societies.

As a result of the post-WW II Mandarin promotion policy and past government-imposed requirements, the vast majority of Taiwanese today romanize their names in Mandarin pronunciation. In contrast, Min Nan and Hakka speakers in other ethnic-Chinese communities of Southeast Asia have tended to romanize their names via non-Mandarin pronunciations. Thus, a Taiwanese of Hoklo descent who has the family name of 陳 will typically romanise it as "Chen" rather than "Tan", as is common in Southeast Asia. Taiwanese people who were migrated from other parts of China use Mandarin as well.

The romanization usually used by Taiwanese is based on Wades-Giles, which can be easily distinguished from the Hanyu Pinyin used for romanization in Mainland China and Singapore by the lack of the use of "q", "zh", and "x" and the inclusion of hyphens. Unlike Mainland China, one can often find non-standard romanizations such as Lee or Soong, and other idiosyncratic variants.

Among the Taiwanese Presbyterian Christians, the family name 偕 (Kai) is of particular interest as an example of a Chinese-like surname with a non-Chinese root. According to the clan's tradition, the name was adopted to honor the Canadian missionary George Leslie Mackay, also known as Má-kai (馬偕). This family name is actually rarely seen even among Presbyterian Christians. Taiwanese Christians of other sects do not carry this tradition.

In Taiwan, the family name 潘 may also have a local derivation from 番, or "barbarian". It is said to be common among descendants of Plains Aborigines. However, 潘 is also a well-established family name in China. This indicator works only occasionally.

(See: Top 10 Taiwanese family names and Top family names in China (1988), List of common Chinese surnames)

[edit] Given or personal names

As with surnames, most of the conventions used among Han Chinese in Taiwan follow those of Chinese names. However, there are a number of areas where conventions in Taiwan differ from other Han Chinese societies.

Taiwanese (Han) given names are usually composed of two characters or syllables. Given names which consist of one character are much less common on Taiwan than in Mainland China.

More common in the past when life was much more difficult, Taiwanese given names are sometimes unofficially re-assigned based on the recommendation of fortune-tellers, in order to ward off bad omens and evil spirits. For example, a sick boy may be renamed "Ti-sái" (豬屎), or "Hog Manure", to indicate to the evil spirits that he is not worth their trouble. Similarly, a girl from a poor family may have the name "Bóng-chhī" (罔市), or translated loosely, "Keeping (her) Only Reluctantly".

Nicknames (also known as "child names", gín-á-miâ, 囝仔名) derives from the practice common to Fujian of being constructed by attaching the prefix "A-" (阿) to the last syllable. Unlike the situation in Mainland China, this construction is used for Hakka names as well. Nicknames are often used by friends to refer to each other, but are rarely used in formal contexts. However, one major exception to this is President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁, Tân Chúi-píⁿ) who is often called A-píⁿ--a (阿扁); by his supporters and rivals alike. This construction has even shown up in Taiwanese Mandarin, as Chen Shui-bian is also often known as A-bian in Mandarin. The use of nicknames in public contexts is however unusual, and very few other public figures (such as the singer A-mei) are known by their nicknames.

[edit] Hakka names

Decades ago, it was not uncommon for Hakka women to have a personal name ending with the character 妹 (moi), meaning "female" in Hakka. Since this practice is uncommon among the Hoklo, this serves as a semi-reliable identifier of Hakka ethnicity, typically among elder population.

Some Taiwanese aborigines also have Hakka-like family and personal names due to the geographical proximity of Hakka communities. For example, the aboriginal pop singer A-mei (張惠妹).

This convention is much less used today, as a name ending with "妹" is considered old-fashioned.

[edit] Examples

Examples of names of prominent Taiwanese born in Taiwan, mostly after World War II. See Chinese name for details. Note that Taiwanese aborigines may have traditional names.

  • One-character family name + two-character given name (mainstream)
    • 王永慶＝王＋永慶(millionaire)
    • 陳長文＝陳＋長文(lawyer)
    • 張榮發＝張＋榮發(millionaire)
    • 林懷民＝林＋懷民(dancer)
    • 陳宜暉＝陳＋宜暉(ethnic dance choreographer)
    • 梁國平＝梁＋國平(linguist)
    • 古金水＝古＋金水 (aboriginal athlete who adopted Chinese name)
  • One-character family name + one-character given name (few)
    • 蔡琴＝蔡＋琴 (folk singer)
    • 蕭薔＝蕭＋薔(actress; stage name)
  • Two-character family name + one-character given name (even fewer)
    • 歐陽龍＝歐陽＋龍 (actor, local politician)
  • Compound family name + one- or two-character given name (rare)
    • 鄭余鎮＝鄭‧余＋鎮 (former politician involved in a sex scandal)
    • 郭李建夫＝郭‧李＋建夫 (retired professional baseball player)
  • Husband's family name + one-character family name + two-character given name (some women)
  • Recent Aborigines' hybrid use of matrilineal name convention with Chinese names (with mother's family name going before father's)
    • 高金素梅＝高＋金＋素梅 (aboriginal actress and legislator who adopted Chinese name)

[edit] Taiwanese aboriginal names

Prior to contact with Han Chinese, the Taiwanese aborigines named themselves according to each tribe's tradition. The naming system varies greatly depending on the particular tribes. Some tribes does not have family names, at least as part of the personal name.

Under the strong influence of Chinese culture and forces of assimilation brought by Han Settlers in the 1600s, the aborigines have gradually adopted Han names. In the 17th century and 18th century, possession of a Han surname was considered to be a sign of being civilized, in part because adoption of a Han surname meant that that person was now entered into the population registration books and could be taxed. Upon possessing a Han surname, most of the lowland aboriginal tribes assimilated with the Han immigrants, and eventually no longer saw themselves or were seen as a distinct population.

The highland tribes generally kept separate names until after WW II when the Government systematically assigned Han names to indigenous Taiwanese. Aborigines settled near Hakka communities were sometimes assignd Hakka-like family names.

In the last two decades some aborigines have again taken up traditional names or chosen to emphasize them. However, few have abandoned their Han names, in part because the Austronesian names are difficult for non-aboriginals to remember or pronounce. As a legacy of the anti-romanisation policy of the past, even these names are often written in Chinese characters to mimic their native sounds, even though Formosan languages are typically written in the Latin alphabet. One interesting quirk is that in looking at candidates for the aboriginal legislative seats, Kuomintang candidates will invariably use a Han-derived name while candidates for the Democratic Progressive Party will invariably use a traditional name.

[edit] Examples

  • Aboriginal name transcribed into Han characters, romanization via piecewise character reading
    • 瓦歷斯尤幹＝瓦歷斯＋尤幹, Wa-li-ssu Yu-kan
  • Aboriginal with Romanized name, and transcribed into Han Characters
    • Walis-Pelin, 瓦歷斯貝林

[edit] Japanese Names

In the early phases of Japanese rule over Taiwan after 1895, the Japanese government did not make any strong effort to encourage Taiwanese to adopt Japanese names. This policy changed in the 1930s when the Japanese government adopted the 'kominka' policy, which encouraged Taiwanese to adopt Japanese cultural practices and Japanese names. These names were generally abandoned in Taiwan after 1945 when Japanese rule was replaced by that of the Republic of China.

[edit] Examples

  • Romanization via Japanese On reading (Chinese name)
    • Koh Se-kai (許世楷), Taiwan's top representative to Japan

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Name lists

These names are mostly male names and they belong to Taiwanese people of the past one to two hundred years. Most of the names are not particularly "Taiwanese" in a way Japanese names are different from Chinese names. Many names simply do not carry any information about their ethnic background.

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