Guide to naming your Chinese OCs

Posted: 2025-10-13

Want to name a Chinese OC? I've got you covered!

Contents

Basics

Chinese names are surname + given name. Same goes for Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Japanese, and possibly many others that I can't think off the top of my head. It's common for westerners to reverse it, but it's better to use the correct order!

Surnames

You can find a list of surnames in these places.

For Han names, one-character surnames are more common, but there are two-character surnames too. Using uncommon surnames can make your characters look cooler but using too many can make you look cringe. Women don't change their surnames after marrying.

Given names

Han given names are usually 1 or 2 characters long, though more recently there has been more and more 4-character names too, either because it's a 2-character surname + 2-character given name, or 1-character surname + 3-character given name. In the PRC the legal name for a Han person cannot exceed 6 characters.

Now what I'm going to talk about is the way everyone in my family comes up with names, and also just a common way in general. Of course this is not the only way to come up with names, but it is indeed common. It's determining what Wuxing element you lack, and making up for that in your name.

Your Wuxing elements are determined by birth time. Preferably down to the minute, but if you only have a rough time that's okay too; just choose the time block that's closest. Since you'll be naming OCs, you can also just arbitrarily set it.

Go to https://www.buyiju.com/sm/wx.php and enter the birthday and time. Disregard name and gender; they're for other stuff. You only need birth date and time for Wuxing.

I chose some random dates and here are the results. This hypothetical person lacks gold.

(Note: this website is kind of stupid in that it remembers your info for the next session; you need to click "exit test" to enter another birthday.)

After determining what element your character lacks, it's time to make up for it in their name. Either choose characters that literally contain the element in it as a radical (dictionaries usually let you look characters up by radical), or choose characters with meanings that relate to the element (then you can think of an English word and translate that).

For some quick examples, take these common ones:

If you decide to give them a 2-character given name, it's not necessary to have both characters contain the element. One is enough.

Of course, this is not the only way to name characters! It's just how my family always named kids (aaaand my parents got my element wrong </3). Another common way is to reference some classical texts, but that requires way to much literacy than I have. Or you can just do whatever random name you find nice!

It's also becoming common for parents to put both surnames in their kid's name, usually into a 4-character name. For example, Zhang Wangxinyu (wang xin yu). In this case, Zhang is still their official surname and Wang is just part of their given name, but it's there.

Siblings

It is common for siblings to have some sort of pattern in their names. Usually they would (in 2-character given names) share one character — e.g. Wang Xinrui and Wang Jiarui, or Chen Ziqi and Chen Zixian. It's also becoming more common for one sibling (or twin) to have the father's surname while the other has the mother's.

Taboos

You know how westerners love naming their kids after themselves? Some Louis the two hundredth bullshit. Well that's a taboo in China — you should never let a younger generation's name be similar to anyone in the older generations. This would only be relevant if you make a lot of characters in the same family.

And well I can't think of any other taboos off the top of my head. Obviously it's bad to name your kids after bad stuff you know, but other than that IDK.

Ethnic minorities

Many ethnic minorities use Han-looking names with some patterns.

For example, a person with the surname 马 (mǎ) or 穆 (mù) has a good chance of being Hui — it actually came from Muhammed and Muslim respectively (well, uh, I think, I can't be 100% sure, but it's too big of a coincidence).

A Manchu person with the surname 付 (fù) is descended from Qing royalty (one of the eight flags. I forgot which. Not the yellow one though). I know because they told me. In fact many Manchu people had to change their names to Han-sounding ones to escape persecution in the years directly following the collapse of the Qing dynasty. It also means that if you try to make a Manchu character called Fu something I'm going to call bullshit on you because I personally know them (well, some of them, but come on how many could there be). Manchu characters named 董 (dǒng) are thin ice because I also know them personally but since they're from the yellow flag (IIRC) there could be way more of them scattered around.

A lot of Zhuang people have the surnames 韦 (wéi), 覃 (tán), 蒙, (méng), 农 (nóng), and 蓝 (lán).

A lot of Koreans have the surnames 金 (jīn / Kim), 李 (lǐ / Lee), 朴 (pú / Park), (崔 (cuī / Choi), and 郑 (zhèng / Jeong). (I suppose this also holds true in Korea.)

Not in China, but about 40% of Vietnamese people have the surname 阮 (Nguyễn).

Non-Han names?

Admittedly I don't know that much about non-Han names but I do know naming conventions for Uyghurs. It's given name + father's given name. So if you see someone named Aygül Memet, you immediately know her dad is Memet [Aygül's grandpa's name]. You should never refer to a Uyghur by only their last name (e.g. no calling her Ms. Memet), because that would be just literally calling their dad.

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