Sinograph Addenda · Signs

name

Name	name
Reads	míng
Means	name; to name
Taught in	08 · Stopping at true

Where it comes from

Evening 夕 beside mouth 口: when the light is gone and your face is not enough, you say your name — the received story, and a good one. Rank 69: “name,” and the verb “to name.” Taught in the stopping-at-true chapter.

How to remember it

A voice in the dusk: “It is I.” Name — the word you keep for when you cannot be seen.

In the wild

名不正，則言不順。míng bù zhèng, zé yán bù shùn"if names are not upright, speech does not flow" — call things what they are, or nothing downstream — speech, ritual, justice — works; 名 opening its own most famous sentence

Analects 13.3. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:013:7a · license: attribution.