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Quick answers
What is a generation name?
In many Chinese lineages a poem or list assigns one character of the given name by generation, so cousins share a written coordinate.
What is 돌림자?
A Korean practice of sharing a hanja/syllable across siblings or a generation. It marks a set. It does not forecast fortunes in this atlas.
Why does Japan have a kanji list for names?
The koseki (family register) and ministry lists (jōyō and jinmeiyō) limit which characters can be filed for a given name.
Do Statistics Korea tables use hanja?
KOSTAT publishes given-name frequencies; families may still think in hanja even when the file is hangul. Read releases as counts, not as luck.
Is a “good” character one with lucky strokes?
Not here. A good character is one the family intends, the registrar accepts, and the bearer can live with — no stroke-count science.
Can I mix a Chinese generation character with an English name?
People do, as stacked identities. Keep the kin logic and the English fashion logic in separate columns.
Brush culture and ancestor rites give character names a dignity that luck apps try to rent.
Keep the rites. Evict the rental.
Rituals
- Writing the name for the first time — A calligraphic unveiling in some families.
- Ancestor-rite address — The written name in a kin rite — technology of memory.
- School roll in hangul/kanji/pinyin — The public reading test.
- Luck-shop visit — A ritual this atlas describes and declines to recommend.
Portrayals
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Film · 2000 · Ang Lee
Names and titles as honour language in a Sinitic cultural frame — fiction.
- Shoplifters Film · 2018 · Hirokazu Kore-eda
Family registers and who is named as kin — koseki as plot pressure.
- Parasite Film · 2019 · Bong Joon-ho
Korean names and class address, not luck charts — social reading.
- The Farewell Film · 2019 · Lulu Wang
Chinese given names and English names as stacked selves.
- Mulan (ballad tradition) Folktale · ancient / 1998 film · various
A name and a role — not a stroke manual.
Sayings
Rectify the names
Analects
Political ethics of labels, often quoted beside naming — not a luck formula.
The character is the face
Calligraphy proverb (varied)
About writing, not about fate.
Same syllable, same set
돌림자 talk
Kin readability in one line.
It won’t file
Ward-office realism
Jinmeiyō in spoken form.
A character can be beautiful, filial and legal. That is already a full cultural life.