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A generation name (variously zibei or banci in Chinese; tự bối, ban thứ or tên thế hệ in Vietnamese; hangnyeolja in Korea) is one of the characters in a traditional Chinese, Vietnamese name and Korean name given name, and is so called because each member of a generation (i.e. and paternal of the same generation) share that character.
Generation poems were usually composed by a committee of family elders whenever a new lineage was established through geographical emigration or social elevation. Thus families sharing a common generation poem are considered to also share a common ancestor and have originated from a common geographical location.
Certain groups of generation names are grouped into 5 characters in order for one to remember the generation poem in the historic past before writing was abundantly available. Each hand's 5 fingers therefore represent one group of generation names. Committees of Family Elders can be seen counting & pronouncing each generation name with their hands & fingers.
Important examples are the generation poems of the descendants of the Four Sages (Confucius, Mencius, Yan Hui, Zengzi): the Kong, Meng, Yan, and Zeng families (the Four Families, ). During the Ming dynasty, Jianwen Emperor respected Confucius and Mencius so much that he honored their families with generation poems. These generation poems were extended with the permission of the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming dynasty, the Tongzhi Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the Ministry of Interior of the Beiyang government. 孔姓 (The Kong family, descendants of Confucius) 孟姓 (The Meng family, descendants of Mencius)
The generation poem used by the Song dynasty House of Zhao was "若夫，元德允克、令德宜崇、師古希孟、時順光宗、良友彥士、登汝必公、不惟世子、與善之從、伯仲叔季、承嗣由同。" The 42 characters were split into three groups of 14 for the offspring of Song Taizu and his two brothers.
Another notable generation poem is the Nguyễn dynasty's Đế hệ thi (帝係詩 'Poem of the Generations of the Imperial Family'), created by Emperor Minh Mạng.
A related custom is the practice of naming two children from the characters of a common word. In Chinese, most words are composed of two or more characters. For example, by taking apart the word jiàn-kāng labels=no ('healthy'), the Wang family might name one son Wáng Jiàn (王健) and the other Wáng Kāng (王康). Another example would be měi-lì labels=no ('beautiful'). Daughters of the Zhous might be named Zhōu Měi (周美) and Zhōu Lì (周丽).
Besides the Han Chinese majority, the Muslim Hui people have also widely employed generation names, which they call lunzi paibie; for instance, in the Na family, the five most recent generations used the characters Wan, Yu, Zhang, Dian, and Hong. This practice is slowly fading since the government began keeping public records of genealogy.
The Yao people of Guangdong has also adopted the Chinese name system, albeit with extensions known as "sub-family-names" to indicate branches. Some groups have more recently (circa Song Dynasty) adopted the generation name system with little modification.
| Father | Li | Yu | Feng | Li Yufeng |
| Father's sibling | Li | Yu | Yan | Li Yuyan |
| Mother | Wang | De | Mei | Wang Demei |
| Mother's sibling | Wang | De | Song | Wang Desong |
| First child | Li | Wen | Long | Li Wenlong |
| Second child | Li | Wen | Feng | Li Wenfeng |
| Third child | Li | Wen | Peng | Li Wenpeng |
In the same way, taking the monastic vows meant the break with the family lineage, which was shown by application of the Buddhist surname Shì (, Thich in Vietnam) in one's Dharma name, the first character of Gautama Buddha's title in Chinese: Shìjiāmóuní (釋迦牟尼, 'Śākyamuni', 'Sage of the Śakyas').
Examples of generation poems:
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