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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

名

míng
name
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 口
  • 6 strokes

Etymology graph

  • inherited
  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 夕 (“crescent moon”) + 口 (“mouth”) — to say one's own name to identify oneself in the dark.

An alternative theory has been proposed based on Shang era texts. 口 was originally used to write both 口 and 名. 夕 standing for what later came to be written 明, was added as a phonetic indicator to disambiguate the two meanings.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *r-meŋ (“name”). Cognate with Tibetan མིང (ming), Burmese အမည် (a.many), and Mizo hming.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*r-meŋ “name”
  • ideaChinese夕 “night; evening; dusk”
  • ideaChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”

Related: Tibetan མིང, Burmese အမည်, Mizo hming

Words built on it: 姓名, 有名, 名字, 著名, 排名

Meanings

character
  1. name
  2. given name
  3. reputation; fame
  4. famous; reputable
  5. excuse; form; ostensible purpose
  6. sign

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

名：自命也。从口从夕。夕者，冥也。冥不相見，故以口自名。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 人或事物的稱號。 例：芳名、地名
  2. 聲譽。 例：美名、盛名、名望
  3. 次第。 例：世界排名
  4. 有名的、出名的。 例：名人、名勝
  5. 形容、說明。 例：莫名其妙、無以名之
  6. 量詞。計算人的單位。 例：學生十名，缺席一名。

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 名 was written 字形演變

  1. 名 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 名 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 名 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 名 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 名 in Clerical script
    Clerical
    隸書
    Han
  6. 名 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 名