国 guó — what the character means in a Chinese name

What 国 means in a Chinese nameguó

19,615 real names in the 1.14M-name corpus♂ 17,487 · ♀ 2,1288 strokesdata & verification

tier B

邦国；有土地、人民、主权的共同体。

A state — land, people and rule taken together.

1 处原典 · 1 部典籍 · 全部可核

以礼让为国 Governing without force

能以礼让为国乎？

Can a state be run by courtesy and yielding?

论语 · 里仁篇 · our translation

Confucius answers with courtesy rather than statecraft. A name takes the breadth, not the office. 孔子把治国的方法说成「礼让」——不是权术。名字用「国」，多数取的是这个胸怀，不是官位。

家国邦国国华国宁安国国维

In a name

Scale of concern, not a rank.

「国」在名字里是格局，不是官职。

1 sourced citation · every line verified character-for-character against a versioned corpus — read or verify the dataset