Tibetan names typically consist of two juxtaposed elements.
Family names are rare except among those of aristocratic ancestry and then come before the personal name (but diaspora Tibetans living in societies that expect a surname may adopt one). For example, in Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, Ngapoi was his family name and Nga-Wang Jigmê his personal name.
Tibetan nomads (drokpa) also use clan names; in farming communities, they are now rare and may be replaced by household name.
Tibetan culture is patrilineal; descent is claimed from the four ancient clans that are said to have originally inhabited Ancient Tibet: Se, Rmu, Stong and Ldong. The ancient clan system of Tibet is called rus-ba (རུས་པ), meaning bone or bone lineage. [1] The four clans were further divided into branches which are Dbra, Vgru, Ldong, Lga, Dbas and Brdav. With inter-clan marriages, the subclans were divided into many sub-branches.
While Tibetans from Kham and Amdo use their clan names as surnames, most farming communities in Central Tibet stopped using their clan names centuries ago and instead use household names.
Traditionally, personal names are bestowed upon a child by lamas, who often incorporate an element of their own name. In the Tibetan diaspora, Tibetans often turn to the Dalai Lama for names for their children. As a result, the exile community has an overwhelming population of boys and girls whose first name is "Tenzin", the personal first name of the 14th Dalai Lama.
Personal names are in most cases composed of readily understood Tibetan words. Most personal names may be given to either males or females. Only a few are specifically male or female.
Meanings of some of the common names are listed below:
Tibetan | Wylie | ZWPY | Chinese | English Common Spelling | Meaning | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
བསྟན་འཛིན | bstan 'dzin | Dänzin | 丹增 | Tenzin, Tenzing | Holder of Buddha Dharma | |
རྒྱ་མཚོ | rgya mtsho | Gyamco | 嘉措 | Gyatso | Ocean | |
སྐལ ་ བཟང | skal bzang | Gaisang | 格桑 | Kelsang | Good destiny, Good luck, Golden age, Flower | |
ཉི་མ | nyi ma | Nyima | 尼玛 | Nyima | Sun, Day, Sunday | |
རྡོ་རྗེ | rdo rje | Duo Jie | 多吉,多杰 | Dorji | Indestructable, Invincible, Vajra | |
དོན་གྲུབ | don grub | Dang Zhou | 顿珠 | Dhondup | Wish come true | |
མེ་ཏོག | me tog | 梅朵 | Medo | Flower | ||
ལྷ་མོ | lha mo | 拉姆,拉莫 | Lhamo | Princess, Goddess, Tibetan opera | ||
སྒྲོལ་མ | sgrol ma | Drölma | 卓玛 | Dolma | Tara, Goddess | |
པད་མ | pad ma | Pema | 贝玛,白玛 | Pema | Lotus | |
ཚེ་རིང | tshe ring | Cering | 才仁 | Tsering | Long life | |
རྒྱལ་མཚན | rgyal mtshan | 坚赞 | Gyaltsen | Banner of victory, Dhvaja | ||
ཡེ་ཤེས | ye shes | Yêxê | 伊喜,益西 | Yeshe | Wisdom, Jnana | [2] |
བསོད་ནམས | bsod nams | Soinam | 索南,索朗 | Sonam | Merit, Virtue | [3] |
བདེ་སྐྱིད | bde skyid | Têci | 德吉 | Diki | Happiness | |
ཟླ་བ | zla wa | Dawa | 达娃 | Dawa | Moon, Month, Monday | |
བཀྲ་ཤིས | bkra shis | Zhaxi | 扎西 | Tashi | Auspiciousness, Good fortune | |
བདེ་ལེགས | bde legs | 德勒 | Delek, Deleh | Bliss, Happiness | ||
རིན་ཆེན | rin chen | 仁钦 | Rinchen | Treasure, Precious Jewel, Gem | ||
དབང ་ མོ | dbang mo | Wangmô | 旺姆 | Wangmo | Lady with wealth and luck | |
བདེ ་ ཆེན | bde chen | Dêqên | 德钦,德千 | Dechen | Great bliss | [4] [5] |
Other common Tibetan names include Bhuti, Choedon, Choekyi, Chogden, Chokphel, Damchoe, Dasel, Dema, Dhondup, Dolkar, Gyurmey, Jampa, Jangchup, Jungney, Kalden, Khando, Karma, Kunchok, Kunga, Lekhshey, Lhakpa, Lhakyi, Lhami, Lhawang, Lobsang, Metok, Namdak, Namdol, Namgyal, Ngonga, Norbu, Paljor, Pasang, Peldun, Phuntsok, Phurpa, Rabgang, Rabgyal, Rabten, Rangdol, Rigsang, Rigzin, Samdup, Sangyal, Thinley, Tsomo, Tsundue, Wangchuk, Wangyag, Woeser, Woeten, Yangdol, Yangkey, and Yonten, Sajan Lama Ngarden.
Sonam Gyatso was the first to be named Dalai Lama, although the title was retrospectively given to his two predecessors.
Lobsang Trinley Lhündrub Chökyi Gyaltsen was the tenth Panchen Lama, officially the 10th Panchen Erdeni, of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. According to Tibetan Buddhism, Panchen Lamas are living emanations of the buddha Amitabha. He was often referred to simply as Choekyi Gyaltsen.
Tibetan Americans are Americans of Tibetan ancestry. As of 2020, more than 26,700 Americans are estimated to have Tibetan ancestry. The majority of Tibetan Americans reside in Queens, New York.
The Seventeen-Point Agreement, officially the Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, was an agreement between the Tibetan Government and the People's Republic of China. It was signed by plenipotentiaries of the Central People's Government and the Tibetan Government on 23 May 1951, in Zhongnanhai, Beijing. The 14th Dalai Lama ratified the agreement in the form of a telegraph on 24 October 1951. The Agreement was legally repudiated by Tibet less than eight years later on 11 March 1959.
The Nechung Oracle is the personal oracle of the Dalai Lama since the second Dalai Lama. The medium currently resides in Nechung Monastery established by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The Nechung Oracle was the designated head of the Nechung monastery in Tibet.
Seven Years in Tibet is a 1997 American biographical war drama film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It is based on Austrian mountaineer and Schutzstaffel (SS) sergeant Heinrich Harrer's 1952 memoir of the same name, about his experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951. Seven Years in Tibet stars Brad Pitt and David Thewlis, and has music composed by John Williams with a feature performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Taktser or Tengtser or Hongya Village is a village in Shihuiyao Township, Ping'an District, Haidong, in the east of Qinghai province, China. Tibetan, Han and Hui Chinese people populate the village which is notable as the birthplace of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.
Thubten Jigme Norbu, recognised as the Taktser Rinpoche, was a Tibetan lama, writer, civil rights activist and professor of Tibetan studies and was the eldest brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. He was one of the first high-profile Tibetans to go into exile and was the first to settle in the United States.
Kumbum Monastery, also called Ta'er Temple, is a Tibetan gompa in Lusar, Huangzhong County, Xining, Qinghai, China. It was founded in 1583 in a narrow valley close to the village of Lusar in the historical Tibetan region of Amdo. Its superior monastery is Drepung Monastery, immediately to the west of Lhasa. It is ranked in importance as second only to Lhasa.
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme was a Tibetan senior official who assumed various military and political responsibilities both before and after 1951 in Tibet. He is often known simply as Ngapo in English sources.
Lhalu Tsewang Dorje commonly known as Lhalu, Lhalu Se, or Lhalu Shape, was a Tibetan aristocrat and politician who held a variety of positions in various Tibetan governments before and after 1951.
The 1959 Tibetan uprising began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since the Seventeen Point Agreement was reached in 1951. The initial uprising occurred amid general Chinese-Tibetan tensions and a context of confusion, because Tibetan protesters feared that the Chinese government might arrest the 14th Dalai Lama. The protests were also fueled by anti-Chinese sentiment and separatism. At first, the uprising mostly consisted of peaceful protests, but clashes quickly erupted and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) eventually used force to quell the protests. Some of the protesters had captured arms. The last stages of the uprising included heavy fighting, with high civilian and military losses. The 14th Dalai Lama escaped from Lhasa, while the city was fully retaken by Chinese security forces on 23 March 1959. Thousands of Tibetans were killed during the 1959 uprising, but the exact number of deaths is disputed.
Tibet came under the control of People's Republic of China (PRC) after the Government of Tibet signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which the 14th Dalai Lama ratified on 24 October 1951, but later repudiated on the grounds that he had rendered his approval for the agreement under duress. This occurred after attempts by the Tibetan Government to gain international recognition, efforts to modernize its military, negotiations between the Government of Tibet and the PRC, and a military conflict in the Chamdo area of western Kham in October 1950. The series of events came to be called the "Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" by the Chinese government, and the "Chinese invasion of Tibet" by the Central Tibetan Administration and the Tibetan diaspora.
The 14th Dalai Lama is, as the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. Before 1959, he served as both the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet and subsequently established and led the Tibetan government in exile in India. By the adherents of Tibetan Buddhism, he is considered a living Bodhisattva, an emanation of Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit, and Chenrezig in Tibetan. The Dalai Lama, whose name means "Ocean of Wisdom," is known to Tibetans as Gyalwa Rinpoche, "The Precious Jewel-like Buddha-Master," Kundun, "The Presence," and Yizhin Norbu, "The Wish-Fulfilling Gem." His devotees, as well as much of the Western world, often call him His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the style employed on his website. He is also the leader and a monk of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, formally headed by the Ganden Tripa.
The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside Tibet.
A brief chronology of the history of Tibet:
Dogan Penjor Rabgye, alternate names Raokashag Penjor Rabgye and Phuntsok Rabgye Ragashar, was an ethnic Tibetan general in the People's Liberation Army and a high-ranking official of the People's Republic of China originating from Lhasa, Tibet.
Lobsang Tashi, also known as Khenchen Lobsang Tashi (1897–1966) was a Tibetan politician who was a senior monastic official and the monastic prime minister (sileun) of the Tibetan government during the early Chinese occupation of Tibet. After the departure of the 14th Dalai Lama in 1959, he was incarcerated in Drapchi Prison where he died in 1966.
Ngawang may refer to: