A cross-cultural comparison between first naming in Cantonese and English

The first naming address between Chinese and English has a number of distinct variant forms. The English and Chinese both have one word, compound and nickname forms, but in contrast, the Chinese find more variant address forms. The reciprocal and nonreciprocal use of first name are conditioned by a number of factors such as sex, age, status, situation, etc. First naming is reciprocally used not only to address but also to define relationships between people. The first naming can also be used as a powerful and convenient device to achieve ends. The purpose of this paper is to make a cross-cultural comparison of the first naming between Chinese, Cantonese in particular, and English.