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Quick answers
What is a generation name?
In many Chinese lineages a poem or list assigns one character of the given name by generation, so cousins share a written coordinate.
What is 돌림자?
A Korean practice of sharing a hanja/syllable across siblings or a generation. It marks a set. It does not forecast fortunes in this atlas.
Why does Japan have a kanji list for names?
The koseki (family register) and ministry lists (jōyō and jinmeiyō) limit which characters can be filed for a given name.
Do Statistics Korea tables use hanja?
KOSTAT publishes given-name frequencies; families may still think in hanja even when the file is hangul. Read releases as counts, not as luck.
Is a “good” character one with lucky strokes?
Not here. A good character is one the family intends, the registrar accepts, and the bearer can live with — no stroke-count science.
Can I mix a Chinese generation character with an English name?
People do, as stacked identities. Keep the kin logic and the English fashion logic in separate columns.
The worldwide problem is often not meaning. It is the one-box form and the passport machine.
Spanish two-surname issues are a sibling problem: software erases structure.
Regions
- China — Generation names
Cohort characters as default kin tech for many lineages.
- Taiwan / Singapore / diaspora — Mixed scripts
Characters at home, Latin at school — stacked.
- Japan — Koseki + jinmeiyō
High legal friction on the written given name.
- Korea — Hanja / 돌림자 / KOSTAT
Design plus public frequencies; no fate claims here.
- Vietnam (related but Latin now) — Hán-Nôm past, quốc ngữ present
A cousin history of leaving characters in the file.
- Anglophone offices — Romanisation only
Everyday reach shrinks to the Latin string.
Laws
- Japanese Family Register Act + jinmeiyō Japan — The strictest common character-list regime.
- Korean family-register practice Korea — Hanja may be recorded; hangul is the everyday legal script — check current registrar guidance.
- Chinese household registration China — Character given names in the hukou system — local rules on rare glyphs have existed.
- ICAO Latin transcription International travel — The machine-readable line flattens characters.
If a system cannot store a character or a generation logic, the defect is in the form.