# About 662 Proper Names in the Bible

> About 662 of the words in the Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified) are proper names — people, peoples and places written in characters chosen for sound rather than meaning.

Question: how many names in the Bible Chinese
Answer: 662
Page: https://chinese-bible.com/en/reference/proper-names-count

This is an estimate, and the method is worth stating plainly: a word counts as a proper name if it has no HSK level and its CC-CEDICT gloss contains a capitalised English word. That catches 耶和华, 以色列 and 摩西, and it will miscount a handful of edge cases in both directions. It is not a hand-curated onomasticon.

Names are the single biggest obstacle for a learner reading Scripture in Chinese, because transliteration removes the usual help: the characters of 耶路撒冷 (Jerusalem) say nothing about the place, only how to say it. They are also why the genealogical books score worst on every difficulty measure here — 1 Chronicles sits last of 66 at 49.7% HSK 1-3.

The good news is that names are few and repetitive. 耶和华 alone accounts for 6,960 occurrences across 37 books, and 耶稣 for 1,492 — so a front-loaded list of a few dozen names carries an entire reading.

## The most frequent names and name-like words

| Word | Occurrences | Verses | Books |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 耶和华 (yē hé huá) | 6,960 | 5,904 | 37 of 66 |
| 耶稣 (yē sū) | 1,492 | 1,388 | 23 of 66 |
| 基督 (jī dū) | 426 | 388 | 23 of 66 |
| 圣灵 (shèng líng) | 205 | 188 | 26 of 66 |
| 安息日 (ān xī rì) | 151 | 134 | 21 of 66 |
| 教会 (jiào huì) | 106 | 100 | 16 of 66 |


## Questions

**How are biblical names written in Chinese?**

By transliteration: characters are chosen to approximate the sound of the Hebrew or Greek name, so 大卫 is Dàwèi (David) and 摩西 is Móxī (Moses).

**Is the count exact?**

No — it is an approximation from dictionary glosses, described above. The exact figures on this site are the character and word counts, which are computed directly from the text.

**Can I learn the names as a set?**

The site's dictionary section covers the major people and places with their Chinese forms, pinyin and key passages.

## Method

- Text: 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script — public domain
- Words: forward maximum matching against CC-CEDICT (this site's own segmentation)
- HSK levels: HSK 3.0 levels from the complete-hsk-vocabulary list; band 7 covers HSK 7-9
- Reading times: 260 characters a minute (an assumption)
- Computed: 2026-09-22

These are reproducible counts over a public-domain text, not a peer-reviewed study. Difficulty ranks are one stated formula, not a validated readability score.


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- Definitions: CC-CEDICT, licensed CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
- If you share this file onward, keep this notice and share alike.
- Character data: Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License / LGPL).
- Bible text: public domain — 和合本 · World English Bible · Louis Segond 1910.
- Built with https://chinese-bible.com