Word.ws English Dictionary

courtesy names

courtesy names is the plural of courtesy name.

Meaning of courtesy name

Noun

courtesy name (plural courtesy names)

  1. (historical) An alias used instead of one's given name by peers and subordinates as a symbol of adulthood and respect in China and sometimes more broadly other East Asian cultures.
    • Confucius's birth name was Kong Qiu, but his courtesy name was Kong Zhongni.
    Synonyms:
    style name

Questions about courtesy names

What is courtesy names the plural of?
Courtesy names is the plural of courtesy name.

Words near courtesy names in the dictionary

  1. courtesy lamp
  2. courtesy lamps
  3. courtesy light
  4. courtesy lights
  5. courtesy name
  6. courtesy names
  7. courtesy of
  8. courtesy of the trade
  9. courtesy phone
  10. courtesy telephone
  11. courtesy title

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: courtesy names (page history and authors); courtesy name (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “courtesy names.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/courtesy_names. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.