(Eine deutsche Version dieser Seite befindet sich hier.)

Here is a list of popular Chinese given names. These are genuine names, in actual use as given names in China, with people living today that carry these names. (This must be stressed because the Internet is full of sites with "Chinese names" that are something else entirely: Western given names written with Chinese characters that have approximately the same pronounciation in Mandarin. You can find more about this here.)

Japanese given names are written with the same kind of characters, but have rather different pronounciations.

This Wikipedia article explains many interesting facts about Chinese names. If you see only "boxes" instead of Chinese characters in the name tables below the most likely reason is missing Unicode support in your browser and/or operating system. Some information about Unicode can be found here.

If you are interested in the Chinese script in general you find can read about it here, including an explanation what "simplified" and "traditional" characters are, which are different for a number of the names in the list.

Kunigunde thanks Chinese Names for the friendly permission to use the list of female and male given names for building the lists here.