Middle Name - East Asian

East Asian

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Further information: Chinese name, Korean name, Japanese name, Generation name, and Chinese style name

Middle names do not traditionally exist for the Chinese people. Most Chinese names consist of three characters – the surname, followed by a two-character given name (ming), which is not separated into a first and middle name in usage. Some Chinese given names contain only one syllable (e.g. Wong Kit). In some cases, two-character given names follow a naming tradition in which the first character of the given name (and thus the second character in the three-character full name) indicates the person's generation in his/her family. For example, Emperor Yongzheng of Qing Dynasty has the given name Yin-zhen (胤禛) while his brothers' names all begin with the character "Yin" 胤. His sons' and nephews' given names all begin with the character Hong (弘). Traditionally, the list of generational names may be decided many generations in advance by the ancestors. In such naming systems, the de facto given name is the last character of a person's full name. Even if that was the case most of the time, sometimes the person's given name is the middle character and not the last. The one that's common in all the names of a generation of children of the same gender determines the "generation name".

A fading Chinese tradition is to use a style name, or courtesy name, called zì (字) in place of a male's given name in adulthood. Traditionally zì is given by one's father upon reaching the age of maturity at 20 years old. This name is intended for use in formal situations and formal writing and confers a status of adulthood and respect. Like the ming, the zì is composed of two characters which usually reflect the meaning of the ming. Prior to the 20th century, sinicized Koreans, Vietnamese, and Japanese were also referred to by their zì. A alternative courtesy name is the hào (simplified Chinese: 号; traditional Chinese: 號; pinyin: hào; Japanese gō; Korean: ho; Vietnamese: hiệu), which usually referred to as the pseudonym. A hào was usually self-chosen and it was possible to have more than one. It had no connection with the bearer's míng or zì; rather it was often a personal choice and may have reflected a personal belief or philosophy. Chinese adults may more frequently use the hào to refer to themselves. The zì or hào can be used independently of the given name and of each other, but the given name is almost always used with the last name in official situations.

Some Chinese Americans move their Chinese given name (transliterated into the Latin alphabet) to the middle name position, and use an English first name, e.g. James Chu-yu Soong, Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang, and Michelle Wingshan Kwan. The Chinese given name usually has two characters which are usually combined into a single middle name for better organizational purposes, especially with Cantonese names, such as Bruce Lee's middle name, Junfan. There are also some new immigrants whose Chinese given names are their first names followed by English middle names.

The practice of taking English and Chinese given names is also common in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. However, rather than placing the Chinese given name between the English given name and the family name, it is commonly placed after the family name in these places. Under such a system, Bruce Junfan Lee would have been Bruce Lee Junfan. This practice is consistent with both the Western convention of putting the given name before the family name and the Chinese convention of putting the given name after the family name.