Mandarin Minutes

One of the most important phrases to learn in any language is “what’s your name?”. This question is all the more important with Mandarin speakers’ emphasis on family name and name order. Usually when you ask a Mandarin speaker this question, the answer will be in the form of ‘family name, given name(s)’.

nǐ  jiào shénme? = 你叫什么？  = what’s your name? (lit. “you called what?”)

nǐ  jiào shénme míngzi? = 你叫什么名字？  = what’s your name? (lit. “you called what name?”)

míngzi ＝ 名字 ＝ name, i.e. given name(s)

A very common way of asking someone’s name is to ask for their family name, and then use that with a title Mr or Ms (Miss). This question asks for someone’s valuable or precious family name, the family name being an important part of a person’s identity in Mandarin speaking cultures. This is general etiquette, to stress the respect to one’s family unit, as represented by the family name.

nǐ  (or the formal polite nín) guì xìng? = 你 (您) 贵姓？ = what’s your family name?

In English, we often say last name instead of family name. To avoid confusion with Mandarin speakers, say family name, as it always comes first, followed by one or two (rarely three) given name(s). Note that some Mandarin speakers in English speaking environments will occasionally invert their names to follow English order of given name, family name. Often you may see the family name followed by a comma and the given name, and sometimes the family name may appear as all caps followed by a given name in lower case.

Examples:

These are all the same name – Wang Fei – WANG, Fei - Wang, Fei - Wang fei - Fei Wang （English style)

Wang xiǎo jiě = 王小姐 = Miss/Ms Wang

More info, please see: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_family_name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_given_name