[Abstract]   People’s name is the most universal language phenomenon in each human society, it is also the historical product of human social development. It has widely and profound relation with the complex social phenomenon. It reflects the civilized condition and the social custom situation of human social development from different angles. English name is a part of human culture, it reflects national culture, which includes language, religious, historical events, and literature, etc. Different personal names reflect different culture. Personal name is the carrier and container of culture. Naming habits is a miniature of the national culture. Its characteristics and the development have close relation with people''s religious belief, England''s historical events, and so on. It is like an encyclopedia, which records social history and the life style of the western nation faithfully. This paper starts with the basic structure and origins of the English name. It expounds that English name, the product of human historical development, originates from specific social background and carries certain cultural connotation. In modern language, some English names are no longer merely used as names. They are used idiomatically to refer to certain types of people or events. If we have a good understanding about English names and their cultural connotations, it will be great helpful for us to understand such usages. All in all, as an English learner, we should comprehend English name culture, which is helpful for us to understand the western cultural context thoroughly

[Key words]   English name; culture; idioms

英语姓名与文化

[ 摘 要 ] 人的姓名是人类社会中最普遍的语言现象，是人类社会发展的历史产物。它同复杂的社会现象有着广泛而深刻的联系，从不同角度反映了人类社会发展的文明状况和社会习俗等情况。作为人类文化的一部分，姓名反映了一个国家的历史与文化，也反映了人们的信仰和追求。不同的人名蕴涵着不同的文化。姓名文化是各民族文化沉淀的一个缩影，同样的，英语姓名的特征和发展也有其特定的社会背景和文化内涵，它同人们的宗教信仰和西方的历史等紧密联系在一起，它就像一本百科全书，忠实地记录了西方国家的社会历史和人文风貌。本文从英语姓名的基本结构特征和来源入手，通过宗教信仰，文学以及英国历史三个方面阐述英语姓名作为人类历史发展的产物有其特定的社会背景和文化内涵。在现代语言中，有许多我们熟悉的习语都和英语姓名相关，了解英语姓名及其文化有助于我们理解并正确使用姓名习语。总之，作为一个英语学习者，了解英语姓名有助于我们在学习英语的同时，跟深入地了解西方的文化背景，从而更好地领会其文化精髓。

[ 关键词 ] 英语姓名；文化 ; 习语

1. Introduction

People’s name is one of the most universal language phenomenons in each human society. It is the specific symbol, which people use to distinguish themselves from other people. [1] It is also the historical product of human social development. In several millenniums years of human history of civilization, along with historical vicissitude, people learned how to use names to identify different person when they communicated with other people. As a phenomenon of human society, “people’s name is a miniature of the national culture.” [2]

culture is a concept that can be defined in different ways. culture is investigated by scholars from several fields. To them the scope of culture is different. Generally, culture has been interpreted in two senses, a broad sense and a narrow one. In its broad sense culture is the attributes of man. culture in this sense may include at least the following components: materials, social institutions and organizations, knowledge, language, customs, and so on. And culture in its narrow sense can be defined as lifeway of a population. [3] People’s name is a language phenomenon, and language is an important part of human culture. Therefore, people’s name has close relation with human culture.   To be exact, different personal names reflect different culture because