正 zhèng — what the character means in a Chinese name

What 正 means in a Chinese namezhèng

7,254 real names in the 1.14M-name corpus♂ 6,373 · ♀ 8815 strokesdata & verification

tier B

端正；改正；正名。

Upright — and to set upright.

1 处原典 · 1 部典籍 · 全部可核

必也正名 Getting the names right

必也正名乎！

It would have to be the rectification of names.

论语 · 子路篇 · our translation

Asked what comes first in government, Confucius says: get the names right. 子路问为政先做什么，孔子答：先把名分正过来。名字里的「正」，这一层最实在——先把事情叫对。

正名中正正之正明守正

In a name

Calling a thing by its right name, first.

「正」是先把事情叫对。

1 sourced citation · every line verified character-for-character against a versioned corpus — read or verify the dataset