I would like to talk about Chinese name, as today I got called as “Mr. Renjian”. Even though I am somewhat got used to “Dear Zhou”, I am somewhat not got used to this “Mr. Renjian” yet.
I know there are different naming rules across countries. So mis-using names should not considered as a big problem. But I do believe that everyone should know the Chinese naming rules, as Chinese is the country with most population and the nations with second most online users. So knowing Chinese rules will help you a lot if you come across with a Chinese.
Chinese name is also simple to remember. Its format would be:
<Family Name><Surname>
The pattern of English name is:
<Surname> <Family Name>
And these days, we do not distinguish surname or family name sometimes. We may call “First Name” and “Second Name”. The order of the name is important. In China, we always call someone in <Family Name> <Surname>, <Surname>, Mr./Mrs./Ms. <Family Name> or “little/old <Family Name>” for nickname. We Chinese never call someone’s name in pattern of “<Surename> <Family Name>”.
And here is my name: Zhou Renjian. And you can call me “Zhou Renjian”, “Renjian”, “Mr. Zhou”, “Little/Old Zhou” or “Dear Renjian”. Don’t call me “Mr. Renjian”, “Little Renjian” or “Dear Zhou”. Even though I got lots of “Dear Zhou” in my emails and got used to such calling, I still find out somewhat gabby for such calling.
There are about 100 common known family names in China. It is very easy to remember a few (At least the first few). Here is the list:
Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li, Zhou, Wu, Zheng, Wang, Feng, Chen, Zhu, Wei, Jiang, Shen, Han, Yang, Zhu, Qin, You, Xu, He, Lv, Si, Zhang, Kong, Cao, Yan, Hua, Jin, Wei, Tao, Jiang, Qi, Xie, Zou, Yu, Po, Shui, Dou, Zhang, Yun, Su, Pan, Ge, ….
