THE STUDY OF CHINESE NAMING OF CHINESE MAJOR STUDENTS IN FACULTY OF HUMANITES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, THAKSIN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

This research report presents the study on the Chinese naming of students in the Bachelor of Arts Program in Chinese, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Thaksin University.  The research objectives were to study the students’ attitudes towards their Chinese naming and examine their structures and naming patterns, categorized according to Chinese and Thai name givers. The samples included 303 first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year students in the academic year 2023. The research was conducted using a survey. Questionnaires were applied to collect the data on the students’ Chinese names, their Chinese naming, their Chinese naming methods, and their attitudes towards such naming. These quantitative data were analyzed by using frequency, percentage, and standard deviation. The research findings revealed that the students’ satisfactions towards their Chinese naming were at the highest level. The top three important criteria that the students considered when selecting their Chinese names involved melodious sounds of the words, ease of pronunciation, and simplicity of the characters. The Chinese name-givers and the Thai name-givers primarily selected the words from nouns, adjectives, and verbs, ranking them as the top three. The first three types of word formation in the Chinese names were compound words, root words, and reduplicated words, respectively. The most frequent meanings conveyed in the words included gentleness, beauty, and purity.