In China, people's names are made up of their surname and given name, which is similar to the custom in the Czech Republic. Chinese names are usually written with two to four characters. For people born in the 1950s to 1990s, two-character names predominate. For children born after 2000, names most often consist of three characters.

In China, children in most cases inherit the surname of the father, which stands at the first place of the full name and has no special meaning. According to statistics, the most common Chinese surnames of recent years are Wang 王, Li 李, Zhang 张, Liu (Liu) 刘, Chen (Chen) 陈, Yang (Yang) 杨, Huang (Chuang) 黄, Zhao (Zhao) 赵, Wu 吴 and Zhou (Zhou) 周. The total population with these ten surnames exceeds 600 million, nearly half of China's population.

Unlike China, there is a distinct gender difference unique to Czech surnames. Female surnames are usually formed by adding the feminine suffix „ová“ to the masculine surname. You won't see this phenomenon in Chinese names.

Yet Chinese parents have one thing in common with Czech ones - they puzzle over the choice of characters that make up their child's own name. These characters usually carry beautiful wishes and express the parents„ hopes for the child's health, academic success, happy and joyful life. Take for example the character “ming„ (鸣), which is part of a traditional saying: “Until you speak, you are nothing; once you speak, you will amaze the world.„ (“You are unknown until you speak out, but with one act you will achieve success.") This saying expresses the desire to achieve astounding success in one's studies and career.

Marie