Common Taiwanese Names

30-Second Overview:
"Market names" (菜市場名, literally "wet-market names") are names so common that shouting them in a market will make a crowd of people turn around at once. This is not a joke: according to the Ministry of Interior's most recent statistics from 2024, there are over 30,000 women named "Shu-Fen" (淑芬) and over 14,000 men named "Jia-Hao" (家豪) across Taiwan, and they have held the top spots for men's and women's most common names for over a decade.¹ These names do not reflect parental laziness — they are the collective consensus of each era in Taiwanese society about what a good name looks like.

Shu-Fen and Zhi-Ming: The Default Names of the Baby Boom Generation

If you have an older relative named "Shu-Fen" (淑芬), "Shu-Hui" (淑惠), or "Mei-Ling" (美玲), that is completely normal.

In the 1960s to 1970s (Republic of China years 50–60), Taiwanese parents held a very consistent set of aspirations for their daughters: be virtuous (淑, shu), be beautiful (美, mei), be gracious (惠, hui). The name "Shu-Fen" reached its peak in those years, and even today — in 2026 — the number of women named "Shu-Fen" across Taiwan still ranks first, with the vast majority concentrated in women aged 50 and above.²

For men, the era belonged to "Zhi-Ming" (志明), "Zhi-Cheng" (志成), and "Wen-Xiong" (文雄). Mayday's famous song "Zhi-Ming and Chun-Jiao" (志明與春嬌) resonated so deeply precisely because these two names were, at the time, synonyms for "the average Taiwanese man and woman."³

Ya-Ting and Yi-Jun: The "Ya/Yi Battle" of the 1980s Generation

By the 1980s (Republic of China year 70s), as Taiwan's economy took off, names started to get a bit more "elegant."

This generation belonged to the wars of "Ya-Ting" (雅婷) versus "Yi-Jun" (怡君). These two names were extremely common among women born between 1980 and 1995. One study reportedly found that in the enrollment list of a certain university, there were so many students named "Ya-Ting" they had to be numbered.⁴ Unlike the grandparent generation's names with their pursuit of traditional virtues, names from this generation carried a touch more aspiration toward "refinement" and "happiness" (雅, ya: elegant; 怡, yi: joyful).

For men, this was the era of "Jia-Hao" (家豪) and "Zhi-Hao" (志豪). The character 豪 (hao, meaning "heroic, outstanding") reflected parents' hope that their sons would become distinguished achievers.

Cheng-En and Zi-Qing: The "Romantic Fiction" Style of the Post-Y2K Generation

If you look at a current elementary or middle school roster, you will find that "Shu-Fen" has completely disappeared.

After 2010 (Republic of China year 100), naming trends in Taiwan underwent dramatic shifts. The new generation of parents, heavily influenced by popular culture and internet literature, began choosing names that sound more like romance novels or fantasy dramas:

• Male: Cheng-En (承恩), You-Ting (宥廷), Pin-Rui (品睿)
• Female: Yong-Qing (詠晴), Zi-Qing (子晴), Pin-Yan (品妍)⁵

The characters 恩 (en: grace), 睿 (rui: wise), and 品 (pin: character/quality) have become keywords for a new generation of parents. This shift shows that the Taiwanese definition of a "good name" has moved away from traditional expectations of character toward a greater emphasis on phonetic beauty and individual distinctiveness — though the end results often still sound remarkably similar.

The Reduplicated-Character Wave: Bin-Bin and Ting-Ting

The Ministry of Interior published its first survey of "reduplicated-character names" in 2023.

Over 60,000 people across Taiwan have reduplicated-character names, with "Bin-Bin" (彬彬) most common for men and "Ting-Ting" (婷婷) for women.⁶ This style of naming is common in early film and television works (such as Lin Bin-Bin) or as stage names, but a portion reflects parents wanting their children's names to sound more endearing and cute.

The Salmon Chaos: Taiwan's "Flexibility" Regarding Names

In March 2021, Taiwan's "Salmon Chaos" (鮭魚之亂) shocked the world.

Because sushi chain Sushiro ran a promotion offering free meals to customers whose names contained "salmon" (鮭魚), a total of 331 people rushed to household registration offices across Taiwan within two days to legally change their names. Some people changed their name to "Zhang Jian Gui Yu" (張簡鮭魚, "Zhang Jian Salmon"), while others adopted names as long as 36 characters.⁷

The "chaos" behind this event actually reflects a distinctive feature of Taiwan's Name Ordinance (姓名條例): Taiwanese people have the right to change their name three times in their lifetime. This means a name in Taiwan is not only a mark given by parents — it is also something closer to an administrative tool that can be "adjusted" or "exchanged for benefits" at any time. Statistics up to 2025 show that about 20% of the "Salmon Family" members from that year still had not changed their names back.⁸

Why This Is Worth Saying

A name is an island's collective memory.

When you call out "Ya-Ting," you are summoning not merely a woman but a generation that experienced Taiwan's economic miracle, the pressure of exam-focused education, and the rise of the internet. When you see a little child named "Cheng-En," you see a generation of modern parents who want to give their children more "ethereal" names.

Market names (菜市場名) are not shameful — they are the evidence that we have lived through life together.

Further Reading

• Ministry of Interior National Name Statistics Analysis (2023 latest edition) — Taiwan's most authoritative official name database.
• "Cheng-En Takes the Crown, Yi-Jun Fades: The Linguistics of Market Names" (Readmoo) — In-depth analysis of the cultural meanings behind naming character choices across different eras.
• Salmon Chaos: A Study of Taiwan's Name-Change Phenomenon (Wikipedia) — Documents the 2021 name-change wave that shook the world.

References