A baby is coming. The due date is near. Have you picked a name? Go with a popular favorites: Liam, Noah, Oliver, James or Elijah? Or if a girl: Olivia, Emma, Charlotte, Amelia or Sophia?
And if we were following Gom Benn tradition, one Chinese character in my grandson or granddaughter’s name would be 奕, pronounced Yì in Mandarin. (Note: our genealogical Book of Wongs records the names of the sons, but not the daughters. So we only know the names of a few daughters through family recollections.)
That 奕 character comes from a generational name poem. All of my grandchild’s Gom Benn cousins, even very distant ones, would have names that include that same 奕 character.
Poetry in Names
For almost 300 years, that was how it was done. Traditional Chinese names are composed of three parts: the family name, a generation name, and a given name. From the 1600s to the early 1900s, our Gom Benn ancestors selected the generation name for their babies based on the following poem (or a modified, longer version):
- 圣帝啟文明
Shèng dì qǐ wénmíng
The Holy Emperor begot civilization
- 道德尊朝廷
Dàodé zūn cháotíng
The imperial court respects morality
- 世传礼义重
Shìchuán lǐ yì zhòng
Etiquette is passed down from generation to generation
- 奕祀振家声
Yì sì zhèn jiā shēng
Family traditions are invigorated from age to age
For Example
My great-great-grandfather was Wong “Han Chal” or 廷楚. The “Han,” or “Tíng” in Mandarin, comes from the fifth character in the second line of the poem.
His brother, Wong Han Wu or 廷瑚, shared the “Tíng” character. Wong Han Wu’s grandson was Wong Chun Sing or 传胜 – AKA Wong Toy Wing, the Sam Sing butcher. Chun Sing shared the Chun character (or Chuán in Mandarin) with my grandfather Chun Fot. Theirs was the 传 or Chun generation.
Poem History
According to researcher Chi Tung, the Yin Long genealogy book of Wongs identifies the author of this poem as Wong Shi Jun黄士俊 (1570-1661), a Ming Dynasty government official and the region’s most prominent scholar.
These poems were a big deal. The Chinese tradition of generational names began about 2,000 years ago, in the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Then, just prior to the Song Dynasty (960 – 1276 AD), Chinese families began using a generational poem for names. The poems are usually a look back, and a look ahead – praising ancestors and voicing hope and prosperity in the future for the family, clan and nation. The poems helped each person identify their lineage.
Wong History
Our Wong lineage began long before our use of generational names and poems. Huang/Wong/黄 is one of the oldest family names in China, going back more than 140 generations or roughly 3,000 years. It wasn’t until approximately 1175 AD that a 112th generation Wong, JuZheng, moved to Toishan. And not until 1252, five generations later, that Wong Yin Long 黄隐龙 moved to DongKou洞口, an area next to Gom Benn Village.
This was all during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), just before the Mongols conquered China and founded the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368).
Coming to Gom Benn
Then 150 years later, in the early 1400s, Wong Yin Long’s descendants established what became Gom Benn Village. It was the 122nd generation of Wongs, and YinLong’s 6th generation descendents that settled in Gom Benn: FuShou孚受, and his brother FuZheng孚政’s two sons YingZuo英佐 and ChaoZuo朝佐 (YinLong’s 7th generation descendents).
Many of our Gom Benn forefathers who came to America, including my father, Bing K. Wong, are descendants of the ChaoZuo 朝佐 branch.
The Wongs settlement of Gom Benn came early in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1688), when rule by the Han Chinese returned. It was roughly 200 years later, near the end of the Ming Dynasty that Wong Shi Jun wrote our generational poem.
The Manchus then conquered China and ruled from 1688 to 1912 as the Ching Dynasty. So it may be that changes in politics and customs accounted for the modifications and variations in the generational poem among our Gom Benn family branches.
Poetry’s End
Then, in the 20th Century, the use of the generational poem fell from favor. It was like Chinese traditions — celebrated, then not, then celebrated, then not…
Why? Perhaps it was the fall of the Ching Dynasty and the rise of modern, Western-influenced culture. The early decades of the 1900s were tumultuous. More and more people left their villages to find work in China’s newly industrialized cities. Or they moved overseas, like our Gom Benn ancestors.
My father’s name, Pak Dong, or Bǎi Zōn or 柏宗, didn’t include his generation’s 礼 or lǐ character. My Chinese name (Bǐng Wēi or 秉威) doesn’t include my generation’s 义 or yì charactor.
Traditions Go
“In the traditional rural economy, farming depends on the land, and this dependence leads to the members of the family or clan living in one village or area. In order to maintain the rules and hierarchy of the family or clan, there must be marks to distinguish genealogical generations,” wrote Li Zhonghua of Ocean University of Qingdao and Edwin D. Lawson of State University of New York College at Fredonia in their 2015 article “Generation Names in China: To Be or Not To Be?”
“The system of generation names serves that purpose. Since more and more people leave the rural areas and come into cities and settle down, the generation name, as the representation of the genealogical generation, lacks the soil for its growth and thus shows itself less and less in importance.”
Traditions Coming Back?
Yet, decades later now, the use of generational names has survived among many in China. Ancestral halls have been rebuilt. Genealogy books republished.
In a survey Li and Lawson conducted for their article in 2015, they found that the use of generational names is surprisingly popular in China. Li and Lawson found that among almost 500 male students they polled about 20% had a generational name, and among 150 female students, roughly 30% had a generational name.
Li and Lawson concluded that there has been a slight increase in the use of generational names in China in recent decades – perhaps reflecting a renewed regard for traditional Chinese culture and customs.
Who knows. Perhaps our Gom Benn families, too, will once again name their children by turning to our generational poem.
