The Chinese White Page in PinYin

C. Notes:

Each entry consists of three fields: name in PinYin (including mother's surname) + phone number + name in HanZi, such as in:

Name in PinYin

a. Tone marks are placed at right upper-hand corner of the syllable. The four tones are respectively represented by superscript ¹, ², ³, ⁴.

b. The order of Chinese name is: given name + surname + (addition sign +) + mother's surname, such as: Jian¹ ning² Li² + Chen². Chinese women do not take their husband's surname after marriage. In stead, they keep their father's surname whole life.

c. The order of the Western name is: surname + given name + other element(s), such as: Smith John R

Western Names

1. Western names are listed as they in the Western phonebooks, such as Smith John R.

2. Women in the West take their husband's name after marriage. The husband and wife are listed in the same entry: Smith John A & Brenda.

3. Some Westerners take Chinese names. They can choose to have these names listed in the directory:

The Hanzi name is not required, but optional for anybody. Chinese can also have it omitted:

Identical Spellings

The same PinYin spellings are further sorted by the order of phone numbers:

Mixture of Chinese and Western names

a. Names consisting of Chinese surname and Western given name are treated as western names, that is, in the order of 'surname + given name.'

b. Names consisting of Chinese surname, Western given name and acronym of Chinese given name are listed as:

Addresses

If addresses are included the phone directory, they can be listed as:

Addresses can also be written in PinYin, such as in:

D. Brief discussion and Format II

There are about only 700 surnames in Chinese, and 200 of which account for 96% of China's population. On the other hand, there are no conventional given names in Chinese. In theory, all Chinese given names are unique, though some are still shared. When naming a newborn, efforts are made to create a brand-new given name, rather than picking up one from a pool of conventional given names. Therefore, listing the Chinese given name before surname in phone directory brings great efficiency for locating names in the white page.

By adding the mother's surname as an element of identification, the chance that an entry is shared by more than one person is very rare. Therefore, the HanZi column can be totally dropped off. When listing people's names in the phone directory, the HanZi are not needed. The PinYin works well by itself. The following table is same as the Format I, except that the column for HanZi is eliminated. Such a directory will be so simple and convenient as its Western counterpart.

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