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Generation name, or banci, is one of the characters in a traditional Chinese name, and is so called because each member of a generation (i.e. siblings) share that character. Unlike surnames or given names, Western names do not have an equivalent custom; though it could be considered analogous when a brother and sister are given the masculine and feminine forms of a name, such as Joseph and Josephine.

This table illustrates an example.

Often, it was usually given only to males in a generation, although this practice is different from family to family and has changed over time. In Chinese practice, generational names are not universally used although they are quite common.

The generation name is written in one character and is typically prescribed by a generation poem (banci lian 班次聯 or paizi ge 派字歌 in Chinese) written centuries ago. The poem varies in length from around a dozen characters to hundreds of characters. Each of the poem's characters is to be a generation name.^[1] After the last character of the poem is reached, the poem may be extended, or (more usually) the generation cycle is reset and the first character is reused.

The generation names were usually decided by a genealogical committee in the family. An exception is the generation names of the Kong and Meng family. During Ming Dynasty, emperor Zhu Yuanzhang respected Confucius and Mencius so much that he honored their families generation names. Since then, the generation names of these two families were extended with the acknowledgement of the Chongzhen Emperor of Ming Dynasty, the Tongzhi Emperor of Qing Dynasty, and the Ministry of Interior of the Beiyang Government.^[2]

In Chinese practice, the banci was shared by a lineage having a common ancestor and generally originating in the same Chinese location. Thus, a single Chinese surname has many different generational names associated with it, and people not sharing the same banci are seen as coming from different families.

The common generation character may be either the first or second one of the two-character name, but it is in the same position for everyone who shares it. For some families, the position switches from generation to generation, so that one generation will share the same first character in the given name, while the next will share the same second character. Furthermore, branches of the same family who are in different locations tend to share the same radical in the third character.

• Chinese name
  • Chinese given name
  • Chinese surname
• Korean name
• Vietnamese name

• Ten untranslated poems: the Cantonese Lee family
• Poem of the Nguyen of Vietnam
• Generation Poem of the descendants of Huang Qiaoshan (872–953) of the Chinese Huang Clan.