How Chinese name themselves One day my friend asked me to give him a Chinese name , and hoped that it means being lucky.I thought hard but failed.As I couldn't come up with a proper name,I searched the Internet for one but failed once again. It seemed strange that I couldn't find a Chinese name that simply means being lucky.Is it because Chinese don't to want to name themselves lucky?Or they don't hope they are lucky?Absolutely not. Several days later,I understand that it's because of the Chinese culture.We believe that the world is made from five elements,including metal,wood,water,fire and earth，which mutually reinforce and neutralize each other .We believe that every human being is made from the five elements of different proportion.So we will be weak in some element.Once the balance of the five elements were broken,something bad will befall us,such as get sick,or lost our wealth.In order to avoid it , we can replenish the element we lack by name us with the word which means the element we lack.Each word has a certain property,which depends on the radicals.For example ,清 has water property . 杨 has wood property . If someone is lack of water, we may name her 清，which can help her avoid the bad things that cause by being lack of water and bring her luck. Now let's get back to the question that why Chinese never name themselves luck? We believe that a proper name that replenish the element we lack will bring luck to us,and vise versa ，which differs from person to person.So we can't simply name ourselves luck. Thank you my friend,If he never ask me this question , never will I realize the way we named ourselves , though I had lived in the Chinese culture for so long .