Burmese names lack the serial quality of most modern names. The Burmese people have no customary patronymic or matronymic system and thus there is no surname at all. In Burmese culture, people can change their name at will, often with no government oversight, to reflect a change in the course of their lives. Also, many Burmese names use an honorific, given at some point in life, as an integral part of the name. However, in modern Burma many of these traditions are changing.[1]
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Burmese names were originally one syllable, as in the cases of U Nu and U Thant. In the mid 20th century, many Burmese started using two syllables, albeit without any formal structure. As they become more familiar with Western culture, Burmese people are gradually increasing the number of syllables in their children's names, by use of various structures. Today, names with up to four syllables are common for males and up to five for females.
For example, Aung San's parents were named Pha (ဖာ) and Suu (စု), both of which are single syllable names. His birth name was Htain Lin (ထိန်လင်း), but he changed his name to Aung San (အောင်ဆန်း) later in life. His child is named Aung San Suu Kyi (အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်). The first part of her name, "Aung San", is from her father's name at the time of her birth. "Suu" comes from her grandmother. "Kyi" comes from her mother, Khin Kyi (ခင်ကြည်). The addition of the father or mother's name in a person's name is now quite frequent, although it does not denote the development of a family name. Other nomenclature systems are used as well.
The use of the names of one's parents and relatives in personal names has been criticized as an un-Burmese adoption of seriality, although it differs from historical Western practices.
Bamar names commonly include Pali-derived words (examples include thanda (သန္တာ "coral," cognate of santa), sanda (စန္ဒာ "moon," cognate of chanda), thiri (သီရိ "splendour," cognate of sri) for females and thura (သူရ "bravery," cognate of sura), thiha (သီဟ "lion," cognate of siha), zeya (ဇေယျာ "victory," cognate of jaya) for males) combined with native Burmese words.
Burmese people who marry into the West or immigrate to countries that use surnames may use their name as if part of it represented a family name. For example, Tun Myint's wife changed her last name to Myint, but Myint is part of his personal name.
As above, honorifics supplement a given name, and can be the normal form of address used both in writing and in speech, especially with a name of one or two syllables. Widespread use of honorifics is found within all cultures in the Burmese region. Although some ethnic groups have special honorifics, these words are recognized and applied by other groups (rather than being translated).
For example, Aung San's parents are more generally known as U Pha and Daw Suu. These can be translated as "Mr. Pha" and "Ms. Suu" but are often used more informally.
Below are some common honorifics used in Burmese names:
| Honorific | Burmese | Translation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashin | အရှင် | Lord | Used by monks, nobles, and rarely, for women |
| Bo/Bogyoke | ဗိုလ်/ဗိုလ်ချုပ် | Commander/General/Leader | Used for military officers (e.g., Bogyoke Aung San) |
| Daw | ဒေါ် | Aunt/Ms | Used for mature women or women in a senior position (e.g. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi) |
| Duwa | ဒူးဝါး | Chief | Used for Kachin chiefs |
| Khun | ခွန် | Mr | Used by Shan men (of Kengtung ancestry; e.g., Khun Htun Oo) |
| Ko | ကို | Brother (older) | Used for men of similar age (e.g., Ko Mya Aye) |
| Ma | မ | Sister/Ms | Used for young women or women of similar age |
| Mahn | မန်း | - | Used by Karen men (e.g., Mahn Win Maung) |
| Mai/Me | မယ် | Used by some young women in lieu of မ, but exceedingly rare | |
| Maung (abbr. Mg) | မောင် | Brother (younger) for boys | Sometimes used as part of given name |
| Mi | မိ | Ms | Used by some young women, usually as a nickname (e.g., Mi Swe) |
| Mi | မိ | Ms | Used by Mon women |
| Min | မင်း | King | Used as a suffix (e.g., Mindon Min) |
| Minh | မင်း | Used by Mon boys; equivalent to Maung | |
| Nai | နိုင် | Mr | Used by Mon men; equivalent to U (e.g., Nai Shwe Kyin) |
| Nang | နန်း | Ms | Used by Shan women |
| Naw | နော် | Ms | Used by Karen women |
| Sai | စိုင်း | Mr | Used by Shan men (e.g., Sai Htee Saing) |
| Salai | ဆလိုင်း | Used by Chin men | |
| Sao | စဝ် | Lord | Used by Shan royalty (e.g., Sao Shwe Thaik) |
| Saw | စော | Lord | Used by Shan royalty (Burmanized form of Sao) (e.g., Saw Mon Hla) |
| Saw | စော | Mr | Used by Karen men (e.g., Saw Bo Mya) |
| Sawbwa | စော်ဘွား | Chief | Burmese approximation of Shan 'saopha', used as a suffix for Shan chiefs (e.g., Nyaungshwe Sawbwa Sao Shwe Thaik) |
| Saya | ဆရာ | Teacher | Used for males of senior rank or age |
| Sayadaw | ဆရာတော် | Royal Teacher | Used for senior monks (e.g., Sayadaw U Pandita) |
| Sayama | ဆရာမ | Teacher | Used for females of senior rank or age |
| Shin | ရှင် | Lord | Used by monks and noble men and women (Archaic; e.g., Shin Arahan, Shin Ye Htut, Yawei Shin Htwe) |
| Tekkatho | တက္ကသိုလ် | University | Used by writers (Archaic; e.g., Tekkatho Phone Naing) |
| Thakin | သခင် | Master | Used by the members of Dobama Asiayone (Archaic; e.g., Thakin Kodaw Hmaing) |
| Theippan | သိပ္ပံ | Science | Used by writers (Archaic; e.g., Theippan Maung Wa) |
| U | ဦး | Uncle/Mr | Used for mature men or men in a senior position and monks (e.g., U Thant, U Ottama) |
Many Burmese Buddhists also use astrology (which is determined by the child's day of birth in the traditional 8-day calendar) to name their children. For instance, a Monday-born child may have a name beginning with the letter "k" (က). The following is a traditional chart that corresponds the day of birth with the first letter used in a child's name, although this naming scheme is not universally used today:
| Day | Letters |
|---|---|
| Monday (တနင်္လာ) | က (ka), ခ (hka), ဂ (ga), ဃ (ga), င (nga) |
| Tuesday (အဂႆါ) | စ (sa), ဆ (hsa), ဇ (za), ဈ (za), ည (nya) |
| Wednesday morning (ဗုဒ္ဓဟူး) | လ (la), ဝ (wa) |
| Wednesday afternoon (ရာဟု) | ယ (ya), ရ (ya, ra) |
| Thursday (ကြာသပတေး) | ပ (pa), ဖ (hpa), ဗ (ba), ဘ (ba), မ (ma) |
| Friday (သောကြာ) | သ (tha), ဟ (ha) |
| Saturday (စေန) | တ (ta), ထ (hta), ဒ (da), ဓ (da), န (na) |
| Sunday (တနင်္ဂနွေ) | အ (a) |
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