Chinese Genelaogy

If you cannot see Chinese script on your browser, go to the Menu bar, click on the View tab, select Character Encoding and Unicode (UTF-8)

This website best viewed in Mozilla Firefox

Only Hanyu Pinyin have been used for Chinese names and these are shown in Italic

All satellite maps obtained from Google Earth

BOOKS & SERVICES

Journey to Chen

You Are Royalty

Roots Search Booklets

Translation

Generation Name (輩字)

The Generation Name is called by a number of terms in Chinese, like:

A clan will normally have a record of its Generation Names, commonly called in English a Generation Poem and known variously in Chinese as:

When a Generation Name (輩字) is appended with an adult name, this combination is referred to as a Style Name or Courtesy Name (字) and some people mistakenly call this a Hao (號) which is something different.

Here is an example of a Generation Poem showing names for 16 generations:

貽謀燕翼，崇德象賢
健順中正，光華濟美

What about the case of those people with only two character names, do they not have a Generation Name? No not at all. Normally the Generation Name can form a part of the complex character personal name, e.g. a character like Bo (波) may inclusively depict a Generation Name for Shui (水) (water) as represented by the three dots in the radical for water. The presence and use of Generation Names can therefore help unravel the hierarchy of the generations within a family clan.

One tragic consequence of China’s one child policy was the disappearance of the Generation Name resulting in names with only a family name and a personal name.