Chinese Kinship Terms (亲戚称呼)
Build a chain such as father's older brother's wife and get the Chinese kinship term (伯母), what that relative calls you and the northern and Cantonese variants.
Related tools: Chinese Calendar · Chinese Zodiac
Frequently asked questions
Why does the answer depend on my sex?
Chinese terms record whose side a relative is on and how they are linked to you. Your father's son is your brother or yourself; your husband's mother is 婆婆 but your wife's mother is 岳母; and what a relative calls you (侄子 or 侄女, for example) depends on whether you are a man or a woman.
What is the difference between 外公 and 姥爷?
Both mean your mother's father. 外公 (and 外婆 for your mother's mother) is common in southern China and in standard Mandarin; 姥爷 and 姥姥 are typical of northern China. Cantonese speakers often say 阿公 and 阿婆.
What do 堂 and 表 mean in cousin terms?
堂 cousins (堂哥, 堂妹 …) are the children of your father's brothers and usually share your surname. 表 cousins (表哥, 表妹 …) are the children of your father's sisters or of your mother's brothers and sisters.
Why do I sometimes get two answers, such as 哥哥、弟弟?
Some chains do not say who is older. Your father's son can be an older or a younger brother, so both terms are shown. Use the 兄/弟 and 姐/妹 buttons when you know the relative age.
How do I use the terms at the Spring Festival (春节)?
Greet each relative with the term followed by a wish, for example 伯母新年好. Families and regions differ, so when someone is used to another name, use the name the family prefers.
How the Chinese kinship calculator works
Chinese has a separate word for almost every relative: your father's older brother is 伯父, his wife is 伯母, your mother's younger sister is 小姨, and so on. This page (亲戚称呼) turns a chain of relations into the right term. You say whether you are a man or a woman, press buttons such as 父, 兄 and 妻 to describe the path from yourself to the relative, and the calculator shows what you call that person, what they call you, and the northern and Cantonese variants. It is useful for Chinese families before the Spring Festival gatherings, for people who married into a Chinese family, and for learners of Chinese.
The chain is reduced with the relation rules of the open-source relationship.js library (MIT License). For example, a parent's son is a brother or yourself, and a child's mother is your wife or yourself, so some chains lead to more than one person and every possibility is listed. The reduced chain is then looked up in the library's table of terms. The reverse term, what the relative calls you, is found by reversing the chain and using the sex of each person along the way. Northern usage (姥爷, 大爷) and Cantonese usage (阿公, 伯娘) come from the same project and are shown beside the standard Mandarin term.
Example: a man builds 父 → 兄 → 妻, the wife of his father's older brother. The calculator answers 伯母, also called 伯妈, 伯娘 or 大娘, with 大娘 in the north and 伯娘 in Cantonese. She calls him 夫侄子 in the data set, a husband's nephew, although many families simply say 侄子. Limits: chains have up to 6 steps, ordinal terms such as 大伯 or 二叔 are not produced, and usage varies by family and region, so ask your relatives which name they prefer.