BaZi Baby Names: Find the Favorable Elements, Then Choose the Characters
Choosing a Chinese name "by the Eight Characters" sounds mysterious, but it comes down to two steps: use the birth chart to find the elements the person needs (the favorable elements), then pick characters whose element is among them. The hard part is the second step. Which element a character belongs to depends on whom you ask, and the answers often contradict each other. This page lays out both steps plainly.
The order of work
- Confirm the birth time. The hour can change the favorable elements. For a newborn, go by the time on the birth certificate, and see birth time correction if it is borderline.
- Find the favorable elements. Judge whether the Day Master is strong or weak first, then set the favorable and unfavorable elements; see favorable elements.
- Pick one method for a character's element. Radical, stroke number or meaning: choose one and use it for the whole name. See a character's element.
- Choose, combine, say it out loud. Meaning, sound, stroke count and any family generation character often matter more than the element. See naming a newborn, step by step.
A character's element depends on the school
Every Chinese character is built from components, and dictionaries file it under one of them, its radical (部首). Characters also have a traditional stroke count taken from the 18th-century Kangxi Dictionary, the Kangxi stroke count (康熙筆劃). Naming traditions use one or the other, or the meaning, to give a character an element:
| School | How it assigns an element | Strength | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radical school (字形) | By the radical, the component that files a character in a dictionary: tree, grass, bamboo and grain are Wood; fire and sun are Fire; earth, mountain, field and stone are Earth; metal and jade are Metal; water, rain, ice and river are Water | Easy to see, with an objective basis | Only about 33.7% of characters have one of these radicals; the rest cannot be judged |
| Stroke-number school (數理) | By the last digit of the Kangxi stroke count: 1–2 Wood, 3–4 Fire, 5–6 Earth, 7–8 Metal, 9–0 Water | Works for every character | Write the character another way, or count strokes another way, and the element changes |
| Meaning school (字義) | By what the character means: 晴 (qíng, clear sky) is sunlight, so Fire; 涵 (hán, to immerse) has to do with water, so Water | Closest to the character itself | Depends on the reader; one character can be read more than one way |
How we counted: using the radical data and Kangxi stroke counts in Unicode Unihan 16.0.0, we checked every character in the CJK Unified Ideographs basic block (U+4E00–9FFF). The radical school is applied only to the 16 radicals whose element every tradition agrees on.
With five elements, two schools matching purely by chance would agree about one time in five (20%). At 19.5%, these two are no better than that. So do not mix them: pick characters by the radical school and then check them against the stroke-number school, and they will almost always "fail." Choosing one school and applying it to the whole name is the honest way to do it.
Find the favorable elements, then check each character of a name
Enter a date of birth (the hour is optional) to see the favorable and unfavorable elements, with example characters for each favorable element. Add a Chinese name if you like, and each character is shown with its element under both the radical school and the stroke-number school. Everything is calculated in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Uses the Gregorian birth date, with the day changing at 11 p.m. Kangxi stroke counts come from the same Unicode Unihan table used by Chinese name numerology.
Three common misunderstandings
Whatever element the chart is missing, the name should add.
The missing element is not necessarily the one the chart needs. A strong Day Master that lacks Resource only grows stronger if you add it; what a name should add is a favorable element, not a missing one. See naming by favorable element and your child's missing element.
The elements in a name can change your destiny.
A name is something you hear and write every day, and a good one can lift your mood and confidence. That much is real. But it cannot change the chart you were born with, and it will not turn an unfavorable luck period into a favorable one.
A name with a lucky 81-number score must be a good name.
The 81 stroke numbers belong to Chinese name numerology (the five-grid system), and different books give different lucky and unlucky tables; we compare two versions on a separate Chinese-language page. It is a separate system from the favorable elements of a BaZi chart.
Read on
A straight word: a name is for life
The element of a name is the part of BaZi naming that gets the most emphasis and is the easiest to overstate. What we can do is help you find the favorable elements and lay the different ways of assigning a character's element side by side. The meaning of a character, how the name sounds, how easy it is to write and what the family hopes for all matter more than its element. Everything on this site is for reference and entertainment; we offer no paid naming service and do not rate names as good or bad.
Want to read your child's chart in full?
The in-depth reading covers favorable elements, personality, learning, health habits and more across twelve areas. A name is only one small piece of it.
BaZi baby names FAQ
How do you choose a Chinese name with BaZi?
In two steps. First use the birth chart to find the favorable elements, the elements the person needs. Then pick characters whose element is favorable. A character's element can be assigned by radical, by Kangxi stroke count or by meaning; choose one method and use it for the whole name.
If a chart is missing an element, should the name add it?
Not necessarily. The missing element is not the same as the needed one; what a name should add is a favorable element. A strong Day Master that lacks Resource, for example, becomes even more lopsided if Resource is added.
How do you tell which element a Chinese character belongs to?
There are three common schools: by radical (a tree radical is Wood, a water radical is Water), by the last digit of the Kangxi stroke count (1–2 Wood, 3–4 Fire and so on), and by meaning. They often disagree; in our count the first two agree on only 19.5% of characters.
How is BaZi naming different from the five-grid name numerology?
BaZi naming asks whether a character's element suits the favorable elements of the chart. Five-grid name numerology looks at the Heaven, Person and Earth grids built from the stroke counts of the full name, and at the 81 numbers. They are two separate systems.
Will changing my name change my luck?
A name cannot change the chart you were born with, nor the direction of your luck periods and years. The value of a good name lies in being easy to say and write, having a good meaning and giving you confidence, which is more tangible than its element.