# 小 + 姓



## yuechu

大家好！

I know that in Chinese, it is common (at least in certain regions), for people to call other people 小 + 姓 or 老 + 姓。I have a few questions about this after talking to a few Chinese people about this (It seems that different people may use them differently? or maybe it is regional?) : If someone calls someone else 小 + 姓, does it sound closer or more distant? Is it only used for acquaintances and not for friends?
 If people are around the same age (or even older), is it still possible (and common) to use 小 + 姓？
 Is 小 + 姓 used commonly for both men or women? (boys and girls)
(I'm also interested to know about 老 + 姓, since it is kind of the corresponding expression for those who are older)

Thanks!


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## nosaijin

Interesting topic.
My answers below are based on my preference and what I usually hear in Taiwan. Things could be totally different in China.


yuechu said:


> If someone calls someone else 小 + 姓, does it sound closer or more distant?


It would sound more distant here- we're more likely to call people who are close to us by their names or nicknames.


yuechu said:


> Is it only used for acquaintances and not for friends?


I think yes (especially for a young one). At least I won't use it for friends.


yuechu said:


> If people are around the same age (or even older), is it still possible (and common) to use 小 + 姓？


Probably not quite common, but it is possible.


yuechu said:


> Is 小 + 姓 used commonly for both men or women? (boys and girls)


I've never heard it used for females. Sounds odd, if not rude.


yuechu said:


> (I'm also interested to know about 老 + 姓, since it is kind of the corresponding expression for those who are older)


Generally, 小+姓 is for those who are (or look) younger, and 老+姓 is for the opposite.


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## SimonTsai

Generally agreeing with @nosaijin, I would add that appellations such as '小陳' and '老高' seem to be popular 20 or 30 years ago and are now mostly used by old or middle-aged men sort of like nicknames. (I am 22. I have the feeling because I watch films and I have an about 60 dad.)


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## corner1912

The only situation in which I think "小x" can be used is in companies (especially in some traditional industries or in a state-owned business) or in gevernment departments. (sometimes parents-in-law would also like to call their son/daughter-in-law as 小x)

Whether it sounds more intimate depends on whether I like the leader. But if your leader is younger than you, I don't think that you can call him/her 小x.

老x is everywhere in China. We even use 老x in boys' dormitory as a nickname. But we don't call a girl/lady 老x, it sounds rude to somebody. It is often used between two people in a good relationship or as a pronoun for a third person（三号楼那个老王昨天打牌又输啦），but it sounds odd to call just an acquaintance 老x if you two are not in that position yet.

Location: northern China


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## Jack12345

Generally, older people call younger one 小..., and younger people call older one 老..., and you can't distinguish they are close or distant just from thoes phrases. e.g. “小李，今晚我请客。”“不好意思，老张，我今晚约了客户。” it's difficult to say they are close or distant.
And youths sometimes call 老... each other, although their age is as similar as each other.
And for some reasons, 小... is used fewer and fewer in common life.


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## albert_laosong

Yes, in state-owned businesses or government agencies, the way of calling each other might still be quite old-fashioned. 
So it's common for the older ones to call the younger ones 小X，even the youngsters themselves call each other 小X if there is not a big age difference.
And later if they have developped into very close friends, they will keep the original way of calling each other. This may be the only situation I can think of now where close friends call each other 小X. 

You never use it on people higher than you in position, unless you are much older and so an old timer. You often use it to call people younger and lower in position than you. This applies to private companies too.
But in private companies people of similar age don't normally use 小X on each other, they either call each other X工（工程师）when their work is technical, or just use first name (if the name consists of 3 character) or full name (if the name contains 2 characters). 

And yes, older people in their 50s and above like to call young people they know 小X, either young people at their work or in their neighborhood. But they wouldn't do that for the young people in their family, it sounds a bit distant. 

老X is mostly used by younger people to call older people of equal or lower rank, or people of equal rank use it to call each other. if the other person outranks you, you normally call them by their title, X经理，X总 etc no matter how old they are. 

and yes, if young men or even young girls are calling each other 老X, it's mostly used in a jocular way. But please note, a man never calls a girl 老X.


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## yuechu

Thank you all for your replies! It's very interesting--and there are certain aspects of its usage that I've misunderstood for years!

I used to have a roommate who called an older roommate 小 + 姓, and they were on friendly terms (both in their 20s at the time). Maybe this is just his individual preferred usage!

I've also known many girls who were called 小 + (a second character). It's possible though that 小 was part of their actual names though! I guess because I had met girls called 小 + (a second character), I thought it was as common as for guys to be called 小 + 姓. 

Someone also told me that it is possible to call girls by 老 + 姓. This is quite rare though, right?

Thanks again!


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## Broccolier

Here in Taiwan we put 小 in front of almost everything
There’s the小七 for 7-11, 小屈 for Watson’s, and 小黃 for taxi, since they are, you know, yellow
Sometimes we use 小黃 and 老黃 for dogs so you might not want to use this when you refer to your friends who’s family name is 黃

And yes we tend to use 老 for an older person
Hence 老黃 is usually a name for an older dog

小王/老王 refers to the man your wife cheats on with

And I do have a female friend called 小張 but it’s rare
Have a friend called 老錢 but he’s actually quite young
So the rules might not be as strict as you would think
This is kind of an old fashioned way to give nick names
Nowadays people just call each other whatever they like to be called 皮卡丘 喬治 貝蒂you name it
But usually we stick to the given names


yuechu said:


> Someone also told me that it is possible to call girls by 老 + 姓. This is quite rare though, right?


I do have a female friend called 老王
But as I mentioned before it usually refers to the man your wife cheats on with
I didn’t want to mislead you so I didn’t mention it before
It’s rare but it’s possible
Especially when sometimes girls wanna be a bit boyish they’ll have people call them that way
Got some female friends called __哥
哥 means big brother and is usually used to show respect to a male character


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## albert_laosong

Broccolier said:


> 小王/老王 refers to the man your wife cheats on with


I don't know 小王, but yes in mainland too 老王 is the fictional person used to represent the next door guy who sleeps with people's wives.


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## SimonTsai

As far as I can tell, '小王' is surpassing '老王' in popularity; people love '小鮮肉'.


Broccolier said:


> Here in Taiwan we put 小 in front of almost everything. There’s 小七 for 7-11, 小屈 for Watsons, and 小黃 for taxis.


Yes, some of us have such idiosyncrasies, but they may not be in the majority, at least of the people around me. (I personally say 'seven' for 7– 11, '屈臣氏' for Watsons, and '計程車' for taxis.)


> And I [...] have a friend called 老錢 but he’s actually quite young.


I remember that in the first half of my secondary school life, I had a classmate nicknamed '老趙', which was only used by some of his friends, all of whom were playful boys. I am unsure whether he is still being called so since we have lost touch.


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## Broccolier

SimonTsai said:


> Yes, some of us have such idiosyncrasies, but they may not be in the majority, at least of the people around me. (I personally say 'seven' for 7– 11, '屈臣氏' for Watsons, and '計程車' for taxis.)



This actually depends on how old you are. No offense but I’m guessing you’re over 30?
Young people say that all the time.

In my time we usually say seven for 7-11.
And for kids today it’s 小七.


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## albert_laosong

Broccolier said:


> There’s the小七 for 7-11, 小屈 for Watson’s, and 小黃 for taxi


it's too much personification, I would never use endearing names like those.  Do the young kids in Taiwan like 7-11, Watson's so much that they give these shops such endearing names?


SimonTsai said:


> As far as I can tell, '小王' is surpassing '老王' in popularity; people love '小鮮肉'.


I'm a little surprised that such new internet slang phrases like "老王"and "小鲜肉" are also popular in Taiwan. 
By the way, I think people in Mainland rarely say 计程车，we either say 出租（车）or 的士/打的.


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## brofeelgood

「七仔」 is a ubiquitous term in Hong Kong. If someone asks you what it means, you can safely assume he's not a local.

「出租车」 in China, 「计程车 (俗称小黄)」 in Taiwan, 「的士 (pronounced in Cantonese)」 in Hong Kong/Macau， and 「德士」 In Singapore/Malaysia.


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## Broccolier

albert_laosong said:


> it's too much personification, I would never use endearing names like those.  Do the young kids in Taiwan like 7-11, Watson's so much that they give these shops such endearing names?



I think we just enjoy putting 小 in front of every thing to make them sound cute.
We also do a lot of 疊字: 包包、麥當當
And sometimes we just love to repeat the last word to annoy people: 哭哭 (it could mean “in your face” or “I’m sad”, depends on the context)


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## Yichen

The following is what I am familiar with:
(Suppose what we're talking about is a "he")

1. if you call a person present "小X"，it implies you're older than him. I don't think it associates with the position you hold or some other relations. The appellation itself is neutral. (A younger female may call a male older than her 小X, but most likely, they both are young.)
2. if you call a person present "老X/X老"，it implies the person is a respected one, but he is not necessarily old or even older than you. We often call a foreign friend "老外"，maybe he is just 18 years old. 柁嘉熹 is called "柁老", but he was born in 1991 and he won the "title" many years ago.
If a young man is called "X老" by his companions，it is a honorable and also interesting thing.

#  It is true X老 seldom applies to young people.


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## yuechu

Thanks again, everyone! 



Yichen said:


> If a young man is called "X老" by his companions，it is a honorable and also interesting thing.


Oh, that's very interesting!
Is this a Southern or Cantonese usage? (Could what precedes 老 be either the surname or a character from the given name?) I think I have only heard of 鬼佬 before (in Cantonese), which follows this usage.

I also heard a girl on a Chinese TV show today (not wanting to be called 小黄) and telling her co-worker that people can call her 小 + one of the characters of her 名字 instead. Is 小 + (a character from someone's 名字) also common? (I didn't write it in the original thread title because I thought it was always used with someone's surname!)


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## Jack12345

yuechu said:


> Could what precedes 老 be either the surname or a character from the given name?


Surname+老，is common a kind of addressing sb respectively. 
老 is not 佬. 佬 is Cantonese, means fellow, guy, or mature. For some reasons, it always implies looking down on. Such as 阔佬，大佬，乡巴佬. But 佬佬 is used as wife calls her husband. It's not 姥姥, which refers to grandma in law.
Some young people will also call his friend ..老, it's just joke, having no meaning of respect here.


yuechu said:


> Is 小 + (a character from someone's 名字) also common?


It's not common, only when they are familiar with each other.


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## albert_laosong

XXX老，this is a very repectful way to call an old person. Normally it's only used for people with some level of social status, similar to the usage of 逝世.
And usually it's used with someone's surname, but occasionally I heard it's used with a character or even all the characters from a given name but I can't remember clearly now.

Normally it's 小+姓，and if their names are like 姓+小+X ( for example 王小明）, you can call him 小明. If you are not very familair with him and feel 小明 is too endearing, then you can call him 小王。
If a person's name doesn't contain 小/晓，for example it's 王昌明，then you only call him 小明 maybe if you grew up together, and you've been calling him 小明 since childhood. 

A little more about the general rules of calling people.  Normally when you have a close friend who has got a two-character name, it's easy, just call him/her by his full name. When your friend has got a three-character name, you could call him/her by their given name only. 
But sometimes people get creative and invent other ways of calling themselves or calling other people, for example 李翊君，she might prefer to be called 君君，张紫菊 might prefer 菊子。

Then when it's a co-worker or acquaintance of yours, you normally call them by 姓+职务, but not all jobs have a suitable title to be called with, then you can use 老+姓 or 小+姓, or you have to be creative and call him in a way that you think is suitable.


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## yuechu

Thanks, Jack12345 and Albert_laosong!


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## Broccolier

yuechu said:


> Oh, that's very interesting!
> Is this a Southern or Cantonese usage? (Could what precedes 老 be either the surname or a character from the given name?) I think I have only heard of 鬼佬 before (in Cantonese), which follows this usage.



老X doesn’t necessarily means that person is old. 老師、老子、老闆means they’re respectful.

Sometimes we use it to show people we’re close. 老哥老姐老弟. But for some reason we don’t really say 老妹. I guess it’s ruse to refer to a lady younger than you as老, since it also implies she’s “old”.

I wonder if 老鴇 means respectful or old.


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## yuechu

That's interesting, Brocolier! Thanks for your examples! 

Actually, I've heard 老妹 (with 儿话音) used on a 东北的电视剧 years ago. Maybe it is more common in 东北话。


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## Broccolier

yuechu said:


> Actually, I've heard 老妹 (with 儿话音) used on a 东北的电视剧 years ago. Maybe it is more common in 东北话。



Could be. And there’s that classic 老外, foreigners. I think it’s just a friendly expression.


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## Yichen

> Oh, that's very interesting!
> Is this a Southern or Cantonese usage? (Could what precedes 老 be either the surname or a character from the given name?) I think I have only heard of 鬼佬 before (in Cantonese), which follows this usage.


China is so big and I mainly live in Shenzhen, so I can only talk about what I am familiar with.
Take 王前进 for example,
How old is 王前进?
王老: over 50 -- normal and very likely，
王老: 20 and above – in his comfortable zone--likely but not common.
柁嘉熹 -- 柁老（He is a professional level 9 Go player, very famous. As I said above, he was called "柁老"  when he was very young. Very likely, a person doesn't know 柁嘉熹 may mistake  "柁老"  as an aged one.）

老王: age is not a big problem among friends. I have been called 老+my surname by my classmates even since we began Grade 11.

佬 is different from 老.
To me, “佬” gives people a mixed feeling. On the one hand, the person labelled 佬 may have gained some advantages over others, but on the other hand, s/he often triggers a negative feeling. In most cases, the word is slightly derogatory, but not always. It depends on how your intended meaning is.

Some Chinese like calling Americans 鬼佬. Yes, Americans are “佬” --- kind of a tycoon in all aspects; on the other hand, Americans are “鬼头鬼脑”（sly; crafty; not easy to trust）to some Chinese. Americans have achieved a lot, and Americans are not so easy to deal with or get along with. So Americans are “鬼佬”.

However, Americans need not feel uncomfortable when they hear they are called 鬼佬. After all, there is more or less a sense of respect in it and I have never seen “鬼佬” is said officially. There may still be a huge cultural gap between the two countries. By the way, Chinese never call Japanese "鬼佬".

Only when 佬 is applied to a really wretched person, it’s totally a derogative word: 小赤佬(a hopeless poor person)、乡巴佬.(a redneck).



> I also heard a girl on a Chinese TV show today (not wanting to be called 小黄) and telling her co-worker that people can call her 小 + one of the characters of her 名字 instead. Is 小 + (a character from someone's 名字) also common? (I didn't write it in the original thread title because I thought it was always used with someone's surname!)


Suppose the girl is 黄羽.
Girls are emotional, so I can only deal with the problem by the rule of thumb.
小黄：sounds somewhat aloof, distant.
小羽：intimate
She likes me to call her 小羽 but only allows you to call her 小黄，why?
As a colleague, if I call her 小羽，You can envy me. Maybe I can ask her to go out.
(If 黄羽 and I are family members, it’s impossible for me to call her “小黄” in daily life.)


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## albert_laosong

yuechu said:


> Actually, I've heard 老妹 (with 儿话音) used on a 东北的电视剧 years ago. Maybe it is more common in 东北话。


Yes, 老妹儿 is used in the Northeast of China, and may be used only there.
In other parts of Northern China, people often say 大妹子.
Both are terms to call a woman younger than the speaker.


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