Week 3/lecture 5Who: What’s in a name?• The individual in the family-Names

-Kinship terms/mourning grades

-Filiality (xiao)

-Uterine Family

• The individual in the lineage• The individual in the life cycle• The individual in architecture

Traditional China

Traditional Europe

Modern West

Individual in relation to family

Names and Naming Patterns

• Surname ( 姓 ): “Old One Hundred Surnames”; mostly single character; surname exogamy

• Personal names:• Little name ( 小名，乳名）• Name ( 名 )• Style or courtesy name ( 字 )• Sobriquet/nickname ( 号 )• Other names: official titles as names; ordination

names

Patterned Naming

• 繁衍昌盛，元順亨嘉。道德貞毅，慶澤宏華

Abundant and prosperous

In harmony with origins and flourishing successful

Virtuous and uprigh

Good fortune is enriched and glory expansive

Female names

• Father’s surname 刘氏 (nee Liu)

• Birth order 　四妹 (Fourth sister)

• Birth order of husband 　张大嫂 (Wife of the Eldest Son of the Zhang)

• Father and husband’s surname 　张刘氏 (Zhang nee Liu)

Kinship termsRELATION TO EGO CHINESE TERM ENGLISH TERM

Paternal grandfatherMaternal grandfather

Zu fuWai zu fu

Grandfather

Paternal grandmotherMaternal grandmother

Zu muWai zu mu

Grandmother

Father Fu qin Father

Mother Mu qin Mother

Son Er zi Son

Daughter Nu er Daughter

Son’s sonDaughter’s son

Sun ziWai sun

Grandson

Son’s daughterDaughter’s daughter

Sun nuWai sun nu

Granddaughter

Mourning grades

Tensions within family

• Between parents and sons

• Between brothers

• Between mother in law and daughter in law

• Between brothers’ wives (sisters in law)

The uterine family has no ideology, no formal structure, and no public existence. It is built out of sentiments and loyalties that die with its members, but it is no less real for all that. The descent lines of men are born and nourished in the uterine families of women, and it is here that a male ideology that excludes women makes its accomodations with reality

Margery Wolf

Levels of culture

• Explicit (naming systems)

• Prescriptive (filiality)

• Implicit (uterine)