Character Of Generation

Character Of Generation is the Chinese character in Chinese name that marks the person's generation in his/her clan.

In traditional Chinese family culture, all male descendants of a gen not only have the common family name, but also have another common character among the descendants of the same generation. Therefore, only a third character needs to be given to each child of the family.

Normally at some stage, the eldest ones of a gen will hold a meeting to decide a list of characters for later generations to use. The next generation will have to take the second character in the list as their Character of Generation. The further next generation will use the third character, as so on. When all characters are used up, the next generation will either restart from the first character in the list or specify another list of characters.

The character of generation normally have meanings of good character, good fortune, or blessing the gen to last long and be prosperous etc.

For some famous gens such as Confucius' gen, their list of characters of generations are granted by the Emperor.

In a three-character Chinese name, the first character is the family name, while the character of generation can be used as either the second character or the third.

For example, the most distinguished women in China in the last century might be the three sisters of the Song's family. Their names are: Song Ai Ling (Soong Ai-ling), Song Qing Ling (Soong Ching-ling), Song Mei Ling (Soong May-ling). Song is their family name. Ling is the character of generation.

External links

• The naming custom in traditional Chinese family culture