摘 要

姓名是人类社会关系中区别个人的一个重要符号，是人类社会特有的文化现象。姓名的产生及发展与一个民族的风俗习惯、文化传统、历史、宗教等因素密切相关，不同的民族文化又存在巨大的差异。同时，姓名又是语言的一种表现方式，体现不同民族语言的文化与特色。对中西姓名的差异进行研究，就是对中西语言文化研究的一个细化，有利于加深对不同文化的理解，增强文化意识，推进跨文化研究的成果。
本论文即立题于对不同文化背景下姓名所代表的不同社会价值及文化内涵的研究，分为三部分进行讨论。第一部分分别介绍了中英姓名的起源和发展，并展开讨论姓氏和名字的不同起源；第二部分对中西姓名文化的相同之处进行了分析比较；第三部分重点分析中西姓名文化的差异以及差异形成的深层原因和文化内涵，主要从中国的集体主义与西方的个人主义方面，以及儒家思想与基督教思想对姓名文化的影响方面进行对比研究。

关键词：中西姓名；文化差异；宗教

Abstract

Name is a critical symbol to identify a person in social relations in human society. It’s a unique circumstance in human world. The origin and development of names are closely related to the customs, culture, tradition, history and religion of a nation. Meanwhile, as a means of language expression, name reflects linguistic characteristics of a nation and its culture. Studying about the differences between Chinese and Western names is a refinement of the intercultural study. It is helpful to deepening the understanding of different cultures, enhance cultural awareness and promote cross-cultural research.
This thesis is based on the study of different social values and cultural connotations of names under different cultural background and the comparison and research of intercultural study. It is separated into three parts. In the first part, it introduces the origin and development of both Chinese and English names, including family name and given name. In the second part, the cultural similarities between Chinese and western names are analyzed and compared. The third part focuses on analyzing the differences between Chinese and western names and the deep causes of the formation and cultural connotation of these distinction, mainly from Chinese collectivism vs. western individualism and Confucianism vs. Christianity.

Keywords: Chinese and Western name; cultural differences; religion

Chapter 1 Introduction
Name is a symbol of human language and it is unique in human society. The most important function of name is to identify and distinguish personality. Both in China and west, the original function of name is to identify a person or a group. But besides that, name is also a symbol of culture. It is closely related to a nation’s culture. The origin and development of names can reflect a nation’s historical development. And the contrast of the composition and connotations between Chinese and Western names can reflect the differences in values, customs and philosophy between Chinese and Western culture. The research of name culture is an important topic on cross-cultural field.