Names of Sun Yat-sen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Like many Chinese, Sun Yat-sen used different names at different points in his life and he is known in China under several of them. Names are not taken lightly in Chinese culture. This reverence goes as far back as Confucius and his insistence on "rectification of names."
In addition to the names and aliases listed below, Sun Yat-sen also used other aliases while he was a revolutionary in exile. According to one study, he used as many as thirty different names.
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[edit] Genealogical name : Sūn Démíng (孫德明)
The "real" name of Sun Yat-sen, the name inscribed in the genealogical records of his family, is Sūn Démíng (孫德明). This "register name" (譜名, pǔ míng) is the name under which his extended relatives of the Sun family would have known him, this is a name that was used in formal occasions, such as when he got married. The first Chinese character of the given name, dé (德), is the generation character which he shared with his brother and his relatives on the same generation line. Traditionally, this name was not used in intercourse with people outside of the family, and inside China or Taiwan almost nobody knows that his real name was Sun Deming (although other historical figures such as Mao Zedong are known by their "register name"), and even many Chinese people wrongly assume that Deming was his courtesy name (字, zì).
[edit] Milk name : Sun Dìxiàng (孫帝象)
This name, however, was not the name that he received when he was born. Traditionally, Chinese families would wait a certain number of years before officially naming their offspring. In the meantime, they used so-called "milk names" (Traditional Chinese: 乳名; pinyin: rǔ míng) which were given to the infant shortly after his birth, and which were known only by the close family. Thus, the actual name that Sun Yat-sen received at birth was Sun Dìxiàng (孫帝象), but again this is a fact rarely known among Chinese, and only his parents would have used the given name Dixiang when calling him. Dixiang literally means "God Elephant."[the literal translation], or more likely to be the case, "king-look" or " emperor-look"[the contextual translation].
In China, it often happened that families dedicated their newly-born to a god or a buddha in order to offer them protection. Sun Yat-sen and his brother were dedicated to the Supreme God of Heaven by their mother, a supreme deity known as Shàngdì (上帝) in Chinese, and so the first character of his milk name (and of his brother too) was di, in reference to Shangdi. As for "Elephant," allegedly his mother dreamed of a large elephant while she was pregnant, and so she called him "Elephant" when he was born.
[edit] School name : Sūn Wén (孫文)
When he was 10 years old he entered the village's Confucian school and received a so-called "school name" (學名, xué míng). The "school name" was actually the formal name of a person used by older people to call the person, and so it was the name that the person would use the most in the first decades of his life (as the person grew older, younger generations would have to use one of the courtesy names instead).
Colloquially, the "school name" is called "big name" (大名, dà míng), whereas the "milk name" is known as the "small name" (小名, xiǎo míng). The "school name" chosen for Sun Yat-sen was Sūn Wén 孫文 (wen meaning "literary"). Unlike the other names above, this name is very well-known among Chinese, and the vast majority of people assume that the original name of Sun Yat-sen was Sun Wen, whereas in fact his "original" name is Sūn Démíng. This is not surprising however, as many families dispensed with choosing a "school name," and so the "register name" was the one used by people of the older generations to call the young man.
In the case of Sun Yat-sen, it seems nobody used the "register name" outside of his family. When he became known by Chinese authorities for his revolutionary activities, he was listed as "Sun Wen", and this is how he was known by Chinese authorities until his death. For instance, when he fled to the U.S. in January 1914, Yuan Shikai's government officially asked the U.S. ambassador in Beijing to cable the U.S. government not to allow a Chinese citizen named "Sun Wen" and traveling under an assumed Japanese name to land in Honolulu.
After attaining public office, Sun consistently used this name - Sun Wen - to sign official documents.
[edit] Pseudonyms : Sūn Rìxīn (孫日新)and Sūn Yìxiān (孫逸仙)
In 1883, 17-year-old Sun Yat-sen was baptized as a Christian, and he started his studies in Hong Kong. On that occasion, he chose himself a pseudonym (號): Rìxīn (日新, meaning "renew oneself daily"). Allegedly he chose this name in reference to a sentence inside the Confucian classic book The Great Learning: "If you renew yourself for one day, you can renew yourself daily, and continue to do so" (「苟日新，日日新，又日新」, gǒu rì xīn, rì rì xīn, yòu rì xīn).
This is the name he used while a student in Hong Kong. Later, his professor of Chinese literature changed this pseudonym into Yìxiān (逸仙). Unlike in Standard Mandarin, both pseudonyms are pronounced similarly in the local Cantonese: Yat-sen. As this was the name that he used in his frequent contacts with Westerners at the time, he has become known under this name (with Cantonese pronunciation) in the West. In the Chinese world, however, almost nobody uses the Mandarin version Sun Yixian, nor the Cantonese version Sun Yat-sen.
[edit] Courtesy names : Sūn Zàizhī (孫載之)
Later, Sun Yat-sen chose a courtesy name (字) which was Zàizhī (載之, meaning "conveying it"). Allegedly, this courtesy name was chosen as a reminder of his "school name" Wen ("literary"), based on the Chinese philosophical saying "literature as a vehicle to convey the Tao" (文以載道, wén yǐ zài dào). Courtesy names in China often tried to bear a connection with the personal name of the person. His courtesy name, however, was apparently seldom used, and is rarely known in the Chinese world.
[edit] Japanese name: Nakayama Shō (中山樵)
In 1897, Sun Yat-sen arrived in Japan, and when he went to a hotel he had to register his name. Desiring to remain hidden from Japanese authorities, his friend wrote down the Japanese family name Nakayama (中山) on the register for him, and Sun Yat-sen chose the given name Shō (?).
Allegedly, on their way to the hotel they had passed by the Palace of Marquis Nakayama (family home of the Meiji Emperor's mother) near Hibiya Park in central Tokyo, and so his friend chose the family name which they had seen hanging at the door of the palace.
For the most part of his stay in Japan, he was known as Nakayama Shō.The kanji for Nakayama (中山) can be read in Chinese pinyin as Zhōngshān.
After his return to China in 1911, this alias (only the family name Nakayama/Zhongshan, not the given name Shō) became popular among Chinese republican circles, and so it was that a Japanese family name became his new Chinese given name. This was aided by the fact that Nakayama/Zhongshan literally means "central mountain" (and can even be interpreted as meaning "China's mountain"), which holds very positive and dignified connotations in Chinese.
Today, the overwhelming majority of Chinese people know Sun Yat-sen under the name Sun Zhongshan (Sun Chung-shan). Often it is shortened to Zhongshan (Chung-shan) only (as is usually done for Chinese names to show respect). Inside China one can find many instances of this version of his name, for example Zhongshan Avenue and Zhongshan Park.
[edit] Honorary titles : Gúofù (國父)
In 1940, the Kuomintang party officially conferred on the late Sun the title Gúofù (國父), meaning "Father of the Nation". This title is still frequently used in the Republic of China in Taiwan. In mainland China, the title "Forerunner of the Revolution" (革命先行者) is sometimes used instead.
