It is a highly convenient arrangement of Chinese family nomenclature, that the names of each member of the same generation (within certain defined degrees of cousinship) furnish a clue to his relationship to the rest. Thus, if a man's surname is Wang, his family name (which can be either two characters or one) may be compounded with the character denoting Spring, in which case one brother might be called Wang Spring-Flowers, the next Wang Spring-Fragrance, a third Wang Spring-Fields, and so universally for that generation as far away among the cousins as the Spring influence penetrates. These family names are theoretically recorded in carefully kept registers, and must not be repeated in later generations, or only after the lapse of a due number of generations. Memorials sometimes appear in the _Peking Gazette_ from high officials asking permission to have a family name altered, since a repeated title has inadvertently been taken. This use of the same characters in Chinese family names has often been compared to the Anglo-Saxon habit of bestowing upon brothers names of which one syllable is constant, as Edward, Edwin, Edmund, Edgar, etc. Besides the name, there is the "style," often much more in use than any other designation, which may be bestowed upon the owner by a friend. It is common by a respectful familiarity to prefix to the first character of the style, the honourific "Old," (_Lao_) making still another title. Thus supposing Mr. Wang Spring-Fragrance has the style of Illustrious Virtue, his common appellation may be Wang Old Illustrious, his other names being used as alternatives. The result of all this is that a single Chinese not infrequently appears to be three and sometimes four, since students have also their examination names, differing, strange to say, from any which they have hitherto borne. The confusion attending the addressing of Chinese letters in correspondence would be intolerable to an Occidental. Aside from the ambiguities already mentioned, it sometimes appears to the writer of a letter a happy expedient to employ a title on the back of his epistle, known only to himself and to the recipient, to the great bewilderment of the persons through whose hands the missive may pass. We have seen a Chinese teacher invited to inspect the address of a letter of this sort, the destination of which neither he nor any one else could decide. Yet it subsequently turned out that the epistle was meant for his own son! With all this labyrinth of future complexity the village boy is very little concerned, often passing through life without any name at all to speak of.