Flowers, plants and trees in female naming in China

Abstract

The paper deals with various linguistic and cultural aspects of Chinese given names constructed out of the linguistic items/lexemes/terms denoting flowers, plants, and trees. Special attention is paid to female naming, as the comparison of women to flowers is a common tendency in many cultures all over the world, including in Chinese culture. The paper discusses 17 Chinese terms denoting plants, flowers, and trees that were of the highest frequency of occurrences among the top 150 terms/lexical items/characters used in female names in the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) at the beginning of the 1980s. The current frequency of these terms is compared with the Internet list of the 150 most common terms/characters presently used in female and male naming in the PRC (approximately the years 2020–2024). It seems evident that the popularity of terms and names after flowers, plants, and trees has decreased, and it may be attributed, among others, to the tendency of Chinese people to opt to create more unisex personal names, and to avoid overt sex stereotyping, particularly in the context of women and female names.