Style name

A style name, also called courtesy name, is a name usually given to a man when he reaches twenty years of age. Style names are either given by the parents or chosen by the man later in life. Since the style name respects the owner's adulthood, it is used in place of their given name by people born in the same generation. Calling someone by their given name was considered rude if the speaker is the same age as the addressee. After a man has his style name, his given name is reserved for his elder's and himself. Creating these names was a common practice in Imperial China and was not largely extended to other cultures. Style names usually consist of two syllables and two characters, and would be used after the surname, such as Zhuge Liang and his style name, "Kongming", would be used as "Zhuge Kongming".

Women sometimes obtained style names after they were married. Unlike men, however, their new names were kept privately for their husbands and were rarely written in historical records.

The practice of making style names have been fading since the New Culture Movement in China.