Practice
Generation names may be the first or second character in a given name. Normally this position is consistent for the associated lineage. However some lineages alternate its position from generation to generation. This is quite common for Korean names. Sometimes lineages will also share the same radical in the non-generation name.
A related, but uncommon, custom is the practice of giving two children characters from a multiple-syllabic word. In Chinese, most words are composed of two or more syllables. For example, by taking apart the word jiàn-kāng 健康 (‘healthy’), the Wang family might name one son Wáng Jiàn (王健) and the other Wáng Kāng (王康). Another example would be měi-lì 美丽 (‘beautiful’). Daughters of the Zhous might be names Zhōu Měi (周美) and Zhōu Lì (周丽).
Besides the Han majority, the Muslim Hui also widely employed generation names, which they call lunzi paibie; for instance, in the Na family, the five most recent generations used the characters Wan, Yu, Zhang, Dian, and Hong. This practice is slowly fading since the government began keeping public records of genealogy.
Read more about this topic: Generation Name
Famous quotes containing the word practice:
“God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“We black women must forgive black men for not protecting us against slavery, racism, white men, our confusion, their doubts. And black men must forgive black women for our own sometimes dubious choices, divided loyalties, and lack of belief in their possibilities. Only when our sons and our daughters know that forgiveness is real, existent, and that those who love them practice it, can they form bonds as men and women that really can save and change our community.”
—Marita Golden, educator, author. Saving Our Sons, p. 188, Doubleday (1995)
“To know how to be content, and to be so, protects one from disgrace; to know self-restraint and practice it protects one from shame.”
—Chinese proverb.
Lao-tzu.