A Chinese courtesy name, sometimes also known as a style name, was a pseudonym that was used in place of a given name by educated Chinese up until the 20th century. These kind of names are no longer in fashion today. There were two common forms of courtesy name, the zi and the hao.

Zi

The zi (Chinese: 字; pinyin: zì) was a name given to males at the age of 20 sui, marking their coming of age. The zi was disyllabic (two characters) and was usually based on the meaning of the ming (given name). The zi (or hao) rather than the ming was used by adults to refer to each other or in writing. The zi did not include the family name and was not used together with the ming.

The relation between the zi and the given name is evident in the case of Mao Zedong (毛澤東, 毛泽东), whose zi was Runzhi (潤之, 润之). One character from each of both Mao's given name and his zi relate to water (the common radical 澤, 氵 signifies "water") and beneficence: ze (澤, 泽) of the given name means "beneficence" and "marsh", and run (潤, 润) of the zi means "benefit" and "moisten".

Prior to the 20th century, sinicized Koreans and Japanese also used zi. In Korean, zi is translated as cha (자), and in Japanese, as azana or ji.

Zi of famous people:

• Confucius
  • Family name: Kong
  • Given name: Qiu
  • Zi: Zhongni
• Li Po
  • Family name: Li
  • Given name: Bai
  • Zi: Taibai
• Sun Yat-sen
  • Family name: Sun
  • Given name: Wen
  • Zi: Zaizhi
• Mao Zedong
  • Family name: Mao
  • Given name: Zedong
  • Zi: Runzhi

Hao

The hao (Traditional Chinese: 號; Simplified Chinese: 号; pinyin: hào) was an alternative courtesy name to the zi. It was most commonly three or four characters long, and perhaps first became popular due to people having the same names. The hao was usually self-selected and it was possible to have more than one. It had no connection with the ming or the zi, but was often a very personal, sometimes whimsical choice perhaps embodying an allusion or containing a rare character, as might befit an educated literatus. The hao was often used in the title of a writer's collected works.

See also

• Chinese name