Chinese Character Wiki
名

míng

name

Depicts a mouth (口) saying their own name at night (夕) when it is too dark for others to see them.

Components
夕 iconic component

夕  Iconic component

xī

  

evening

Depicts the moon.

口 iconic component

口  Iconic component

kǒu

  

mouth

Evolution

名 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
名 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
名 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
名 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
名 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

名  

míng

name, rank, title, position; name; noun (part of speech); place (e.g. among winners); famous; classifier for people

Most common words with 名
Freq.
Word
Meaning

名

name

名字

name (of a person or thing)

著名

famous

名单

list (of names)

签名

to autograph

Component uses

Meaning component in 2 characters (0 verified)

銘 铭

Sound component in 5 characters (0 verified)

銘 铭 茗 酩 眳

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*C.meŋ

mjieng

míng

name


Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 96.0276% of movies

188th most common character in movies

203rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

6

Unicode

U+540D

Shuowen

“名，自命也。从口，从夕。夕者，冥也。冥不相見，故以口自名。”


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