[citation needed] Traditionally, Chinese families would wait a certain number of years before officially naming their offspring.

In the meantime, they used so-called "milk names" (乳名; rǔmíng) which were given to the infant shortly after his birth, and which were known only by the close family.

On that occasion, he chose himself the baptized name (敎名; jiàomíng) of "Yat-sun" (Chinese: 日新; pinyin: Sūn Rìxīn; Cantonese Yale: Yahtsān; IPA: [jɐt˨ sɐn˥]), meaning "renew oneself daily".

[7] Au Fung-Chi gave Sun the name Yet-sen (逸仙; IPA: [jɐt˨ si:n˥], pinyin: Yìxiān; Cantonese Yale: Yahtsīn).

[1] A street in Macau has the name Avenida Dr. Sun Yat-sen (Chinese: 孫逸仙大馬路; Jyutping: syun1 jat6 sin1 daai6 maa5 lou6; pinyin: Sūn Yìxiān Dàmǎlù).

[3] Previously on their travel they passed by a board that used the common Japanese family name Nakayama (中山, "middle mountain").

[3] After the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, and he was no longer pursued by the Qing authorities,[3] local people could refer to him as Sūn Wén (孫文) again.

[3] But the name Chung-shan (中山), the Chinese pronunciation of his Japanese pseudonym, "Nakayama," was more commonly used later in his life (and to present day).

[13] The honorific suffix Xīanshēng (先生) has also been applied to his name, sometimes even written with preceding Nuotai, as "孫中山先生" (pinyin: Sūn Zhōngshān xiānshēng).