ABSTRACT
Many translations of classic Chinese novels which initially adopted the Wade-Giles convention have been converted into the pinyin system of Romanisation in their reprints. Widely acknowledged as a gold mine of historical and cultural information, JPM is unmistakably a museum of the naming conventions of old China. While people from both a Chinese background and an English background share the same practice of using names comprising a forename and a surname, their naming conventions are nevertheless different. As an adult, his first name is reserved for use by his superiors either in social position or age. Take 'Ch'e Tan' and 'Kuan Shih-k'uan' for example, in both cases, it takes the family name and first name together to give the meaning, 'hogwash' and 'busybody', respectively. Symbolic names are no doubt the 'more obvious' category among all names because the recognition of their allegorical connotation may be reckoned as important as the story itself by the author.
