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Cultural Differences Between Chinese and English Names

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Cultural Differences Between Chinese and English Names
Cultural Differences between Chinese and English Names

The names are common language phenomenon, not only because it is a kind of identification code between people to distinguish each other, but also because it is a national historical and cultural information carrier.It conveys a language of a nation, as well as history, geography, religion, custom, social status and other aspects of information. Names have been interpreted in two senses:a broad sense and a narrow sense. The names ,in its narrow sense, refers to the names of things ,such as names of persons , names of places , names of companies, trademarks and so on. The names ,in its broad sense ,extend to a common names of things even to names of basic concepts. The former is generally called study of naming the object , while the latter is extended to the etymology. But there will not be a gap, it might as well put together to discuss. Names, as a symbol and sign, is not strange to us. Everyone from childhood is given their names by their parents,which closely related to their whole life. Besides, names have something to do with every single day in your whole life.They are essential tool in social interaction. What’s more, the way you addressing people’s names shows your emotion. These are the condensation of cultural tradition and social customs. Therefore, different cultures have different inheritance custom of names. Different cultural traditions and social customs in China and English-speaking countries cause the different custom of names .
Chinese Names
1.1 Names bear the parents’ expectations of children and parents’ hobbies. Parents hope that their children have a promising future ,so they named the child " Peng fei ". Parents love the winter plum, and they name their daughter " Dan mei ".
1.2 Names contain misfortunes-free ,disease-free, turn calamities into blessings, and compensate for the fate of the significance of defects. Such as the names of the child " Qubing", " Changsheng

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