Chinese Kinship Calculator
Find the correct Chinese family title based on relationship chain - a guide to traditional Chinese kinship system
Quick Relations
Direct Elders
Siblings
Spouse
Children
What is Chinese Kinship Calculator?
A Chinese kinship calculator helps identify the proper family title from a relationship chain, such as father’s younger brother, mother’s sister, spouse’s parent, or a cousin through a particular side of the family. Chinese kinship terms are unusually specific because they distinguish paternal and maternal lines, older and younger siblings, gender, marriage links, and the speaker’s relationship position. That makes direct translation from English words like uncle, aunt, or cousin unreliable. It helps before family gatherings, weddings, New Year visits, genealogy notes, and language learning. It should still be treated as a standard-reference helper: regional speech, clan habits, dialect names, step-relations, adoption, and informal family nicknames may differ from the built-in table.
How to Use
How to use
- Forward mode: Click relation buttons to build the chain, see real-time results
- Reverse mode: Select a title to see the corresponding relationship chains
- Use quick relation buttons for common relations (e.g., grandfather, uncle, aunt)
- Use spouse relations to find in-law titles (e.g., father-in-law, sister-in-law)
Relationship Tips
- Chinese kinship titles depend on side of family, generation, age order, marriage relation, and speaker gender, so check the relationship chain carefully.
- Regional names can differ from standard terms; use the result as a reference when talking with relatives from a specific region.
Use Cases
Technical Principle
The lookup table is the cultural-knowledge layer: each (chain pattern, speaker gender) pair maps to a canonical title plus a list of regional aliases. For example, ['mother', 'father'] resolves to 外祖父 (waizufu) with aliases 姥爷 / 外公 / 阿公 depending on Northern/Southern/Cantonese/Hakka usage. The traditional 五服 (Wǔ Fú, five degrees of mourning) and 九族 (Jiǔ Zú, nine generations from 高祖 great-great-grandparent down to 玄孙 great-great-grandchild) bound the table — relations beyond five degrees are labeled 'out of mourning' and dropped from the formal kinship vocabulary.
Forward resolution is O(depth) — a direct walk through the chain in linear time against the chain length, typically 1 to 5 steps. Reverse resolution (title → possible chains) is a bounded BFS over the relation graph: starting from 'self', the search expands edges up to a depth cap (defaults to 5, covering the five-mourning boundary) and collects every chain whose computed title matches the target. Because the same title (e.g. 表哥 biǎogē, older male maternal-side cousin) can be reached through several paths — 母→兄→子 or 母→姐→子 — the reverse mode returns all valid chains rather than one canonical answer.
- Graph model: nodes are kin roles, edges are basic relations (parent, sibling, spouse, child); each edge carries gender, age order, and lineage side (paternal 父系 / maternal 母系)
- Chain encoding: relationship as an ordered array, e.g. ['father','father']=祖父 yézǔ, ['mother','father']=外祖父 wàizǔfù, ['father','younger-sister']=姑 gū
- Speaker-gender dispatch: in-law titles fork on speaker gender — spouse's father is 岳父 yuèfù if speaker is male, 公公 gōnggōng if speaker is female
- Paternal vs maternal prefix: 堂 táng prefix marks paternal-side cousins (father's brothers' children), 表 biǎo prefix marks maternal-side or father's-sister's-side cousins
- Regional alias table: each canonical entry stores Northern/Southern/Cantonese/Hakka variants (姥爷/外公/阿公) so the result reflects spoken dialect, not only the standard Mandarin form
- Wǔ Fú boundary: the five-degrees-of-mourning ranks (斩衰/齐衰/大功/小功/缌麻) cap formal kinship vocabulary; chains beyond depth 5 are marked '出五服' (out of mourning)
- Complexity: forward lookup is O(depth) linear walk; reverse lookup is bounded BFS over the relation graph with depth cap = 5, returning every chain whose computed title matches
Examples
Paternal lineage - grandfather chain
Chain: Me -> Father -> Father
Result: 爷爷 (Ye ye) - paternal grandfather (father's father)
Note: 爷 is the standard Northern term; the same relative is called 公公 (Gong gong) in some Southern dialectsMaternal lineage - maternal grandmother
Chain: Me -> Mother -> Mother
Result: 姥姥 (Lao lao) - maternal grandmother (mother's mother)
Note: also called 外婆 (Wai po) in Southern regions; the 姥/外 prefix signals the maternal side, distinguishing it from 奶奶 (paternal grandmother)In-law title depends on speaker gender
Chain: Me -> Spouse -> Father
Result: 岳父 (Yue fu) if you are male, 公公 (Gong gong) if you are female
Note: Chinese in-law titles fork on the speaker's gender - this is the most common point of confusion for English speakersComplex chain - maternal aunt by marriage
Chain: Me -> Mother -> Sister -> Husband
Result: 姨夫 (Yi fu) - husband of one's maternal aunt (mother's sister's husband)
Note: distinct from 姑父 (Gu fu, paternal aunt's husband); the 姨/姑 prefix marks maternal vs paternal sideFAQ
How does the calculator find the right kinship term?
You walk the family tree from yourself to the relative one step at a time (father's brother's son, etc.), and the page maps the path to the correct Chinese kinship term, which depends on side of family (paternal vs maternal), gender, generation, and birth order.
Why are Chinese kinship terms so much more specific than English?
Traditional Chinese family structure distinguishes paternal and maternal lines, older and younger relatives within a generation, and by gender on every step. Where English uses one 'cousin', Chinese has 8+ distinct terms (堂哥/堂弟/堂姐/堂妹/表哥/表弟/表姐/表妹). The calculator preserves these distinctions.
Does it handle in-laws and step-relatives?
Yes. Spouse-side relatives, step-parents, step-siblings, and in-laws follow their own naming conventions in Chinese (e.g. 岳父/丈母娘 for wife's parents, 公公/婆婆 for husband's parents). Pick the appropriate connector at each step.
Are regional dialect terms covered?
The page uses Mandarin (Putonghua) standard terms by default. Many regions of China have local variations - Cantonese, Min, Wu, Hakka all have different forms - which are not all captured. Cross-check with elders if the cousin-level term matters at a wedding or funeral.
What about extended generations - great-great-grandparents?
Each generation up adds 高 (great-) prefixes: 祖父 (grandfather), 曾祖父 (great-grandfather), 高祖父 (great-great-grandfather). Down the tree adds 玄/来 prefixes for great-grandchildren and beyond. The calculator extends to several generations.
How do I address my partner's relatives?
Pick the spouse step first ('my husband's…' or '我妻子的…'), then continue down the partner's tree. The output gives both the formal term and the address form (how you actually call them in person), since they often differ - e.g. you call your husband's mother 妈妈 in person but 婆婆 when describing her.
Is this just for fun or for real use?
Both. It is genuinely useful at large weddings or Chinese New Year gatherings where you need to know what to call distant relatives, and for filling in formal documents that ask for the relationship. Treat the result as a guide; family-specific habits override the textbook.