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All in the Family

All in the Family is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS for nine seasons, from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. It was later produced as Archie Bunker's Place, a continuation series, which picked up where All in the Family ended and ran for four seasons through 1983.

Based on the British sitcom Till Death Us Do Part, All in the Family was produced by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin. It starred Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers, and Rob Reiner. The show revolves around the life of a working-class man and his family. It broke ground by introducing challenging and complex issues into mainstream network television comedy: racism, antisemitism, infidelity, homosexuality, women's liberation, rape, religion, miscarriages, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, and impotence. The series became arguably one of television's most influential comedic programs, as it injected the sitcom format with more dramatic moments and realistic, topical conflicts.

All in the Family has been ranked as one of the best American television series. The show became the most watched show in the United States during the summer reruns of the first season, and topped the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976, the first television series to have held the position for five consecutive years. The episode "Sammy's Visit" was ranked number 13 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time ranked All in the Family as number four. Bravo also named the show's protagonist, Archie Bunker, TV's greatest character of all time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked All in the Family the fourth-best written TV series In 2023, Variety ranked All in the Family #16 on its list of the 100 greatest TV shows.

Premise
All in the Family centers on a working-class White American family living in Queens, New York. Its patriarch, Archie Bunker (O'Connor), is an outspoken, narrow-minded man, seemingly prejudiced against everyone not like him or his ideas of how people should be. Archie's wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) is sweet and understanding, which can make her appear naïve and uneducated. Her husband often treats her dismissively and uses disparaging language, calling her "dingbat".

Their one child, Gloria (Sally Struthers), is generally kind and good-natured like her mother, but displays traces of her father's stubbornness and temper. Unlike them, she is a feminist. Gloria is married to college, later graduate student, later college instructor Michael Stivic (Reiner)–referred to as "Meathead" by Archie–whose values are likewise influenced and shaped by the counterculture of the 1960s. The two couples represent the real-life clash of values between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers. For much of the series, the Stivics live in the Bunkers' home to save money, providing abundant opportunity for them to irritate each other.

The show is set in the Astoria section of Queens, with the vast majority of scenes taking place in the Bunkers' home at 704 Hauser Street. Occasional scenes take place in other locations, especially during later seasons, such as Kelsey's Bar, a neighborhood tavern that Archie spends a good deal of time in and eventually purchases, and the Stivics' home after Mike and Gloria move out.

Supporting characters represent the changing demographics of the neighborhood, especially the Jeffersons, a Black family, who live in the house next door in the early seasons and then left the area for the higher end Upper East side of Manhattan after George (the husband) made a fortune with his dry cleaning business. The Jeffersons then rented their home to Gloria and Mike.

Main characters

 * Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker: Frequently called a "lovable bigot", Archie was an assertively prejudiced blue-collar worker. A World War II veteran, Archie longs for better times when people sharing his viewpoint were in charge, as evidenced by the nostalgic theme song "Those Were the Days", also the show's original title. Despite his bigotry, he is portrayed as loving and decent, as well as a man who is simply struggling to adapt to the constantly changing world, rather than someone motivated by hateful racism or prejudice. His ignorance and stubbornness seem to cause his malapropism-filled arguments to self-destruct. He often rejects uncomfortable truths by blowing a raspberry. Former child actor Mickey Rooney was Lear's first choice to play Archie, but Rooney declined the offer because of the strong potential for controversy, and in Rooney's opinion, a poor chance for success.
 * Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker, née Baines: Edith is Archie's ditzy but kind-hearted wife. Archie often tells her to "stifle" herself and calls her a "dingbat", and although Edith generally defers to her husband's authority and endures his insults, on the rare occasions when Edith takes a stand, she proves to have a simple but profound wisdom. Despite their different personalities, they love each other deeply. Stapleton developed Edith's distinctive voice.  Stapleton remained with the show through the original series run, but decided to leave at that time. During the first season of Archie Bunker's Place, Edith was seen in five of the first fourteen episodes in guest appearances. After being largely carried as an invisible character, Edith was written out as having suffered a stroke and died off-camera in the following season, leaving Archie to deal with the death of his beloved "dingbat". Stapleton appeared in all but four episodes of All in the Family. In the series' first episode, Edith is portrayed as being less of a dingbat and even sarcastically refers to her husband as "Mr. Religion, here ..." after they come home from church, something her character would not be expected to say later.
 * Sally Struthers as Gloria Stivic, née Bunker: The Bunkers' college-aged daughter who is married to Michael Stivic. She has the generally kind nature of her mother, but the stubbornness of her father, which early in the series manifests as childishness, later as a more mature feminism. Gloria frequently attempts to mediate between her father and husband, generally siding with the latter. The roles of the Bunkers' daughter and son-in-law (then named "Dickie") initially went to Candice Azzara and Chip Oliver. After seeing the show's pilot, ABC requested a second pilot expressing dissatisfaction with both actors. Lear later recast the roles of Gloria and Dickie with Struthers and Reiner. Penny Marshall, Reiner's wife, whom he married in April 1971 shortly after the program began, was considered for the role of Gloria. During the earlier seasons of the show, Struthers was known to be discontented with how static her part was and, in 1974, sued to get out of her contract. But the character became more developed, satisfying her. Struthers appeared in 157 of the 202 episodes during the first eight seasons—from January 12, 1971, to March 19, 1978. She later reprised the role in the spin-off series Gloria, which lasted one season in 1982–1983.
 * Rob Reiner as Michael "Meathead" Stivic: Gloria's Polish-American hippie husband is part of the counterculture of the 1960s. While good-hearted and well-meaning, he constantly spars with Archie, and is equally stubborn, although his moral views are generally presented as being more ethical and his logic somewhat sounder. He is the most-educated person in the household, a fact which gives him a self-assured arrogance, and despite his intellectual belief in progressive social values, he tends to expect Gloria to defer to him as her husband. As discussed in All in the Family retrospectives, Richard Dreyfuss sought the part, but Norman Lear ultimately cast Reiner. Harrison Ford turned down the role, citing Archie Bunker's bigotry. Reiner appeared in 174 of the 202 episodes of the series during the first eight seasons—from January 12, 1971, to March 19, 1978. Reiner is credited with writing three of the series' episodes.
 * Danielle Brisebois as Stephanie Mills, the nine-year-old daughter of Edith's cousin Floyd, who is a regular throughout the ninth season. In addition to being thought cute and having a sweet side, she is smart, clever, and does give her own few remarks at Archie from time to time. The Bunkers take her in after her father abandons her on their doorstep in 1978. He later extorts money from them to let them keep her. She remained with the show through its transition to Archie Bunker's Place and appeared in all four seasons of the continuation.

Supporting characters

 * Sherman Hemsley as George Jefferson, Isabel Sanford as his wife Louise, and Mike Evans as their son Lionel, Archie's Black neighbors: George is Archie's combative black counterpart; Louise is a smarter, more assertive version of Edith. Lionel first appeared in the series' premiere episode "Meet the Bunkers"; Louise appeared later in the first season. Although George had been mentioned many times, he was not seen until 1973. Hemsley, who was Norman Lear's first choice to play George, was performing in the Broadway musical Purlie and did not want to break his commitment to that show. Lear kept the role waiting for him until he had finished with the musical. Plots frequently find Archie and George at odds with each other while Edith and Louise attempt to join forces to bring about a resolution. George and Louise later moved to an apartment in Manhattan in their own show, The Jeffersons. Lionel appeared in All in the Family as a college student and aspiring electrical engineer who early on did odd jobs around the neighborhood including television and radio repair.
 * Mel Stewart, as George's brother Henry Jefferson: The two appeared together only once, in a 1973 episode in which the Bunkers host Henry's going-away party, marking Stewart's final episode and Hemsley's first. After the Jeffersons were spun off into their own show in 1975, Stewart's character was rarely referred to again and was never seen. In the closing credits of "The First and Last Supper" episode, Mel Stewart is incorrectly credited as playing George Jefferson. Stewart was actually playing George's brother Henry Jefferson, who was pretending to be George for most of the episode. (Season 1–4, 8 episodes)
 * Bea Arthur as Edith's cousin Maude: Maude was white-collared and ultra-liberal, the perfect foil to Archie, and one of his main antagonists. She appeared in two episodes, "Cousin Maude's Visit", where she took care of the Bunker household when all four were sick, and "Maude" from the show's second season, which was basically a backdoor pilot. Her spin-off series, Maude, began in fall 1972. (Season 2, 2 episodes)
 * Betty Garrett and Vincent Gardenia as the liberal Roman Catholic next-door neighbors Irene and Frank Lorenzo: Both first appeared as a married couple as Irene was trying to use the Bunker's phone. During an argument earlier in the episode, Archie and Mike had broken the phone wire. Irene being a 'handyman' of sorts with her own tools, which she carried in her purse, fixed it. Irene fixed many things at the Bunker house during her time on the show. She also had a sister who was a nun and appeared in one episode. "Edith's Christmas Story" reveals that Irene has had a mastectomy. Archie got her a job as a forklift operator at the plant where he worked. Irene was a strong-willed woman of Irish heritage, and Frank was a jovial Italian househusband who loved cooking and singing. He also was a salesman, but what he sold was never said. Gardenia, who also appeared as Jim Bowman in episode eight of season one (as the man who sold his house to the Jeffersons) and as Curtis Rempley in episode seven of season three (as a swinger opposite Rue McClanahan), became a semi-regular along with Garrett in 1973. Gardenia only stayed for one season as Frank Lorenzo, but Garrett remained until her character was phased-out in late 1975. (Season 4–6)
 * Allan Melvin as Archie's neighbor and good friend Barney Hefner: Barney first appeared in 1972 as a recurring character. His appearances increased during subsequent seasons until he became a regular. He appeared as a regular in all four seasons of Archie Bunker's Place. Melvin also appeared in first-season episode "Archie in the Lock-up" as a desk sergeant at a police precinct.

Recurring characters

 * James Cromwell as Jerome "Stretch" Cunningham (1973–1976) "The Funniest Man in The World", Archie's friend and co-worker from the loading dock (Archie claims that he is known as the "Bob Hope" of the loading platform): What Archie did not know was that Stretch was Jewish, evident only after Stretch died and Archie went to the funeral. Archie's eulogy (or "urology" as he called it) for his friend is often referred to as a rare occasion when he was capable of showing the humanity he tried so earnestly to hide. In the episode titled "Archie in the Cellar", Billy Sands is referred to as Stretch Cunningham, the voice on the tape recorder telling jokes. Sands also appeared as other characters on the show during its run, in Kelsey's Bar as a patron. (Season 5, 3 episodes)
 * Liz Torres as Theresa Betancourt (1976–1977): A Puerto Rican nursing student who meets Archie when he is admitted to the hospital for surgery. She later rents Mike and Gloria's former room at the Bunker house. She called Archie "Papi". Torres joined All in the Family in the fall of 1976, but her character was not popular with viewers, and the role was phased out before the end of the season. (Season 7, 7 episodes)
 * Billy Halop as Mr. Munson (1971–76), the cab driver who lets Archie drive his cab to make extra money. (Season 1–3 & 5–6, 10 episodes)
 * Bob Hastings as Kelcy or Tommy Kelsey, who owns the bar Archie frequents and later buys: Kelcy was also played by Frank Maxwell in the episode "Archie Gets The Business". The name of the establishment is Kelcy's Bar (as seen in the bar window in various episodes). Due to a continuity error, the end credits of episodes involving the bar owner spell the name "Kelcy" for the first two seasons and "Kelsey" thereafter, although the end credits show "Kelcy" in the "Archie Gets the Business" episode.
 * Jason Wingreen as Harry Snowden, a bartender at Kelcy's Bar who continues to work there after Archie purchases it as his business partner: Harry had tried to buy the bar from Kelcy, but Archie was able to come up with the money first, by taking a mortgage out on his house, which the Bunkers owned outright.
 * Gloria LeRoy as Mildred "Boom-Boom" Turner, a buxom, middle-aged secretary at the plant where Archie works: Her first appearance was when Archie is lost on his way to a convention and Mike and Gloria suspect he and she could be having an affair. Archie gave her that moniker as she was walking by the loading dock. He said when she walked, "Boom-Boom". She is not fond of Archie because he and Stretch leer at her and because of their sexist behavior, but later becomes friendly with him, occasionally working as a barmaid at Archie's Place. Gloria LeRoy also appeared in a third-season episode as "Bobbi Jo" Loomis, the wife of Archie's old war buddy "Duke".
 * Barnard Hughes as Father John Majeski, a local Catholic priest who was suspected by Archie one time of trying to convert Edith: He appeared in multiple episodes. The first time was when Edith accidentally hit Majeski's car near the local supermarket with a can of cling peaches in heavy syrup. (Season 2,3 & 4, 3 episodes)
 * Eugene Roche appeared as practical jokester friend and fellow lodge member "Pinky Peterson", one of Archie Bunker's buddies, in three episodes, first in the episode "Beverly Rides Again", then the memorable Christmas Day episode called "The Draft Dodger" (episode 146, 1976), and finally the episode "Archie's Other Wife". (Season 7 & 9, 3 episodes)
 * Sorrell Booke as Lyle Sanders, personnel manager at Archie Bunker's workplace, Prendergast Tool and Die Company. He had appeared on the series as Lyle Bennett, the manager of a local television station, in the episode "Archie and the Editorial" in season three.
 * Lori Shannon played Beverly La Salle, a transvestite entertainer, who appeared in three episodes: "Archie the Hero", "Beverly Rides Again", and "Edith's Crisis of Faith". In that third episode, Mike and Beverly are attacked, and Beverly dies in a hospital from injuries suffered during the fight.
 * Estelle Parsons as Blanche Hefner (1977–1979), Barney's second wife: Blanche and Archie are not fond of one another, though Edith likes her very much. The character is mentioned throughout much of the series after Barney's first wife, Mabel, had died, though she only appeared in a handful of episodes during the last few seasons. Estelle Parsons also appeared in the season-seven episode "Archie's Secret Passion" as Dolores Fencel. (Season 7 & 9)
 * Bill Quinn as Mr. Edgar van Ranseleer (Mr. van R), a blind patron and regular at the bar: He was almost never referred to by his first name. In a running joke, Archie usually waves his hand in front of Mr. van R's face when he speaks to him. His role was later expanded on Archie Bunker's Place, where he appeared in all four seasons.
 * Burt Mustin as Justin Quigley, a feisty octogenarian/nonagenarian: Mr. Quigley first appeared in the episode: "Edith Finds an Old Man" (season four, episode three, September 23, 1973) where he runs away from an old age home. He temporarily moves in with the Bunkers but quickly leaves to share an apartment with his friend Josephine "Jo" Nelson, played by Ruth McDevitt. He appeared in several other episodes, including "Archie's Weighty Problem". Mr. Mustin previously appeared in a first-season episode as Harry Feeney, the night watchman at Archie's workplace. (1, 4–6, 5 episodes)
 * Nedra Volz as Aunt Iola: Edith's aunt, she was mentioned several times in the eighth season and stayed with the Bunkers for two weeks. Edith wanted her to move in, but Archie would not allow it, though when he thought Iola did not have any place to go, he told her privately that she could always stay with them.
 * Francine Beers and Jane Connell as Sybil Gooley, who worked at Ferguson's Market: Frequently mentioned, usually by Edith, Sybil predicted that Gloria and Mike were having a baby boy by performing a ring on a string "swing test" over Gloria's abdomen. Sybil also appeared in the episode "Edith's 50th Birthday" and spilled the beans on her surprise party because she had not been invited. Archie and she did not get along, and he referred to her as a "Big Mouth".
 * Rae Allen and Elizabeth Wilson as Edith's cousin Amelia DeKuyper: Archie detests Amelia and her husband, Russell, who are wealthy. Once, she sent Edith a mink and Archie wanted to send it back, until he found out how much it was worth. In another episode, Amelia and her husband visit the Bunkers to bring them gifts from a recent trip to Hawaii, but in a private moment, Amelia shares with Edith that, despite appearances, she and Russell are considering a divorce. The character was played by two different actresses in three episodes of the show.
 * Richard Dysart and George S. Irving as Russell DeKuyper, Amelia's husband. He is a plumbing contractor who continued the business started by Amelia's father and uncles. He constantly flaunts his monetary wealth in front of Archie and looks askance at the way Archie lives, forgetting that he walked into a profitable plumbing business. He appeared in two of the episodes that featured Amelia.
 * Clyde Kusatsu as Reverend Chong appeared in three episodes. He refused to baptize little Joey in season six, and then remarried Archie and Edith, and Mike and Gloria in season eight, and gave counsel to Stephanie in season nine as it was learned that she was Jewish. (Season 6, 8 & 9, 3 episodes)
 * Ruth McDevitt as Josephine "Jo" Nelson: She played the girlfriend of Justin Quigley, the older man Edith found walking around the supermarket. She appeared in three episodes from seasons four through six. Gloria and Mike adopted them as their god grandparents. Of most of the characters, Archie took a liking to Justin and Jo. She died following the end of the sixth season. (Season 4 & 5, 3 episodes)
 * William Benedict as Jimmy McNabb: The Bunkers' neighbor, he appeared in two episodes during the first and second seasons and was referred to many times during the first few seasons.
 * Jack Grimes as Mr. Whitehead: A member of Archie's lodge, he was the local funeral director. The death of Archie's cousin Oscar in a season-two episode of All in the Family brings the very short, white-haired, and silver-tongued Whitehead with his catalog of caskets. (Season 2 & 4, 2 episodes)

History and production
The show came about when Norman Lear read an article in Variety magazine on Till Death Us Do Part and its success in the United Kingdom. He immediately knew it portrayed a relationship just like the one between his father and himself.

Lear bought the rights to the show and incorporated his own family experiences with his father into the show. Lear's father would tell Lear's mother to "stifle herself" and she would tell Lear's father "you are the laziest white man I ever saw" (two "Archieisms" that found their way onto the show).

The original pilot was titled Justice for All and was developed for ABC. Tom Bosley, Jack Warden, and Jackie Gleason were all considered for the role of Archie Bunker. In fact, CBS wanted to buy the rights to the original show and retool it specifically for Gleason, who was under contract to them, but producer Lear beat out CBS for the rights and offered the show to ABC. Mickey Rooney was offered the role but turned it down as he felt the character was "un-American".

In the pilot, Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton played Archie and Edith Justice. Kelly Jean Peters played Gloria and Tim McIntire played her husband, Richard. It was taped in October 1968 in New York City. After screening the first pilot, ABC gave the producers more money to shoot a second pilot, titled Those Were the Days, which Lear taped in February 1969 in Hollywood. Candice Azzara played Gloria and Chip Oliver played her husband Dickie. D'Urville Martin played Lionel Jefferson in both pilots.

After stations' and viewers' complaints caused ABC to cancel Turn-On (a sketch comedy series developed by Laugh-In's George Schlatter) after only one episode in February 1969, the network became uneasy about airing a show with a "foul-mouthed, bigoted lead" character, and rejected the series at about the time Richard Dreyfuss sought the role of Michael. Rival network CBS was eager to update its image and was looking to replace much of its then popular "rural" programming (Mayberry R.F.D., The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres) with more "urban", contemporary series and was interested in Lear's project; by this point, Gleason was no longer under contract to CBS (his own show was among those eliminated), allowing Lear to keep Carroll O'Connor on as the lead. CBS bought the rights from ABC and retitled the show All in the Family. The pilot episode CBS developed had the final cast and was the series' first episode.

Lear wanted to shoot in black and white as Till Death Us Do Part had been. While CBS insisted on color, Lear had the set furnished in neutral tones, keeping everything relatively devoid of color. As costume designer Rita Riggs described in her 2001 Archive of American Television interview, Lear's idea was to create the feeling of sepia tones, in an attempt to make viewers feel as if they were looking at an old family album.

All in the Family was the first major American series to be videotaped in front of a live studio audience. In the 1960s, most sitcoms had been filmed in the single-camera format without audiences, with a laugh track simulating an audience response. Lear employed the multiple-camera format of shooting in front of an audience, but used tape, whereas previous multiple-camera shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show had used film. Due to the success of All in the Family, videotaping sitcoms in front of an audience became a common format for the genre during the 1970s, onward, until the advent of digital HD. The use of videotape also gave All in the Family the look and feel of early live television, including the original live broadcasts of The Honeymooners, to which All in the Family is sometimes compared.

For the show's final season, the practice of being taped before a live audience changed to playing the already taped and edited show to an audience and recording their laughter to add to the original sound track, and the voice-over during the end credits were changed from Rob Stone's voice "All in the Family was recorded on tape before a live audience." to Carroll O'Connor's"All in the Family was played to a studio audience for live responses." (typically, the audience was gathered for a taping of One Day at a Time, and got to see All In the Family as a bonus.). Throughout its run, Norman Lear took pride in the fact that canned laughter was never used (mentioning this on many occasions); the laughter heard in the episodes was genuine.

Theme song
The series' opening theme song "Those Were the Days", was written by Lee Adams (lyrics) and Charles Strouse (music). It was presented in a way that was unique for a 1970s series: Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton were seated at a console or spinet piano (played by Stapleton) and sang the tune together on-camera at the start of every episode, concluding with applause from a studio audience. The song dates back to the first Justice For All pilot filmed in 1968, although on that occasion O'Connor and Stapleton performed the song off-camera and at a faster tempo than the series version.

Six different performances were recorded over the run of the series, including one version that includes additional lyrics. The song is a simple, pentatonic melody, that can be played exclusively with black keys on a piano, in which Archie and Edith were nostalgic for the simpler days of the past. A longer version of the song was released as a single on Atlantic Records, reaching number 43 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 30 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in early 1972. The additional lyrics in this longer version lend the song a greater sense of sadness and make poignant reference to social changes taking place in the 1960s and early 1970s.

A few perceptible drifts can be observed when listening to each version chronologically. In the original version, the lyric "Those Were The Days" was sung over the tonic (root chord of the song's key), and the piano strikes a dominant 7th passing chord in transition to the next part, which is absent from subsequent versions. Jean Stapleton's screeching high note on the line "And you knew who you WEEERRE then" became louder, longer, and more comical, although only in the original version did the line draw a laugh from the audience.

Carroll O'Connor's pronunciation of "welfare state" added more of Archie's trademark whining enunciation, and the closing lyrics (especially "Gee, our old LaSalle ran great") were sung with increasingly deliberate articulation, as viewers had complained that they could not understand the words. Also in the original version, the camera angle was shot slightly from the right side of the talent as opposed to the straight on angle of the next version. Jean Stapleton performed the theme song without glasses beginning in season 6.

In addition to O'Connor and Stapleton singing, footage is also shown beginning with aerial shots of Manhattan, and continuing to Queens, progressively zooming in, culminating with a still shot of a lower middle-class semidetached home, presumably representing the Bunkers' house in Astoria, suggesting that the visit to the Bunkers' home has begun. The house shown in the opening credits is actually located at 89–70 Cooper Avenue in the Glendale section of Queens, New York.

A notable difference exists, between the Cooper Avenue house and the All in the Family set: the Cooper Avenue house has no porch, while the Bunkers' home featured a front porch. Since the footage used for the opening had been shot back in 1968 for the series' first pilot, the establishing shot of the Manhattan skyline was completely devoid of the World Trade Center towers, which had not yet been built. When the series aired two years later, the Trade Center towers, although under construction, had still not yet risen high enough to become a prominent feature on the Manhattan skyline. This did not happen until the end of 1971.

Despite this change in the Manhattan skyline, the original, somewhat grainy 1968 footage continued to be used for the series opening until the series transitioned into Archie Bunker's Place in 1979. At that time, a new opening with current shots of the Manhattan skyline were used with the Trade Center towers being seen in the closing credits. This opening format – showing actual footage of the cities and neighborhoods in which the show was set – became the standard for most of Norman Lear's sitcoms, including others in the All in the Family franchise – Maude, Good Times, and The Jeffersons.

At the end of the opening, the camera then returns to a last few seconds of O'Connor and Stapleton, as they finish the song. At the end of the original version, Edith smiles at Archie and Archie smiles off at a slight distance. In the longest running version (from season 2 to season 5), Edith smiles blissfully at Archie, and Archie puts a cigar in his mouth and returns a rather cynical, sheepish look to Edith. From season six through eight, Edith smiles and rests her chin on Archie's shoulder.

In the final season, Edith hugs Archie at the conclusion. In the first three versions of the opening, Archie is seen wearing his classic trademark white shirt. In the final version of the opening for the series' ninth season, Archie is seen wearing a grey sweater-jacket over his white shirt. In all versions of the opening, the song's conclusion is accompanied by applause from the studio audience.

In interviews, Norman Lear explained that the idea for the piano song introduction was a cost-cutting measure. After completion of the pilot episode, the budget would not allow an elaborate scene to serve as the sequence played during the show's opening credits. Lear decided to have a simple scene of Archie and Edith singing at the piano.

The closing theme, an instrumental, was "Remembering You", played by its composer Roger Kellaway, with lyrics later added by Carroll O'Connor. It was played over footage of the same row of houses in Queens as in the opening, but moving in the opposite direction down the street, and eventually moving back to aerial shots of Manhattan, suggesting the visit to the Bunkers' home has concluded. O'Connor recorded a vocal version of "Remembering You" for a record album, but though he performed it several times on TV appearances, the lyrics about the end of a romance were never heard in the actual series. In July 1986, vocalist Helen Merrill's contrastingly jazz-flavored rendition, accompanied by a Kellaway-led trio and introduced by O'Connor, was featured on The Merv Griffin Show.

Except for some brief instances in the first season, scenes contained no background or transitional music.

Setting and location
Lear and his writers set the series in the Queens neighborhood of Astoria. The location of the Bunkers' house at 704 Hauser Street is fictitious. No Hauser Street exists in Queens. The address is not presented the way addresses are given in Queens: most address numbers are hyphenated, identifying the number of the nearest cross street. Nevertheless, many episodes reveal that the Bunkers live near the major thoroughfare Northern Boulevard, which was the location of Kelsey's Bar and later Archie Bunker's Place.

The exterior of the house shown at the show closing is a home located at 89-70 Cooper Avenue, Glendale, Queens, New York, across from St. John Cemetery (40.71249°N, -73.86078°W).

Many real Queens institutions are mentioned throughout the series. Carroll O'Connor, a Queens native from Forest Hills, said in an interview with the Archive of American Television that he suggested to the writers many of the locations to give the series authenticity. For example, Archie is said to have attended Flushing High School, a real school in Flushing, Queens, although in the "Man of the Year" episode of Archie Bunker's Place, Archie attended Bryant High School in nearby Long Island City. As another example, the 1976 episode "The Baby Contest" deals with Archie entering baby Joey in a cutest-baby contest sponsored by the Long Island Daily Press, a then-operating local newspaper in Queens and Long Island.

The writers of All in the Family continued throughout the series to have the Bunkers and other characters use telephone exchange names when giving a telephone number. Most other series at the time, such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, were using the standard fictitious 555 telephone exchange at a time when the Bell System was trying to discontinue them. At different times throughout the series, the exchanges Ravenswood and Bayside – both valid in the area – were used for the Bunkers' telephone number. Actual residents of the Bunkers' age continued using exchange names into the early 1980s, which is referred to in the 1979 episode "The Appendectomy", in which Edith gets confused between the two versions of a number she is dialing.

Episodes
"Sammy's Visit", first broadcast in February 1972, is a particularly notable episode, whose famous episode-ending scene produced the longest sustained audience laughter in the history of the show. Guest star Sammy Davis Jr. plays himself. Archie is moonlighting as a cab driver and Davis visits the Bunker home to retrieve a briefcase he left in Archie's cab earlier that day. After hearing Archie's bigoted remarks, Davis asks for a photograph with him. At the moment the picture is taken, Davis suddenly kisses a stunned Archie on the cheek. The ensuing laughter went on for so long that it had to be severely edited for network broadcast, as Carroll O'Connor still had one line ("Well, what the hell — he said it was in his contract!") to deliver after the kiss. (The line is usually cut in syndication.)

Syndication
During the show's sixth season, starting on December 1, 1975, CBS began airing reruns on weekdays at 3p.m. (EST), replacing long-running soap opera The Edge of Night, which moved to ABC. The show would later move to 3:30p.m. and in September 1978, 10a.m. This lasted until September 1979, when Viacom distributed the reruns to the off-network market where many stations picked up the show. In 1991, Columbia Pictures Television began syndicating the show, and Columbia's successor companies have continued to do so.

Since the late 1980s, All in the Family has been rerun on various cable and satellite networks including TBS (although it held the rights locally in Atlanta, as well), TV Land, Nick at Nite, and Sundance TV. From January 3, 2011, to December 31, 2017, the show aired on Antenna TV. As of January 1, 2018, the show began to air on GetTV. Since February 5, 2023, MeTV aired episodes of the show on Sunday nights at 8:00 PM ET/7:00 PM CT. All episodes have been airing nightly on the Catchy Comedy (formerly Decades) digital retro TV network.

The cast forfeited their residual rights for a cash payout early in the production run.

Ratings
All in the Family is one of three television shows (The Cosby Show and the reality music competition American Idol being the others) that have been number one in the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive TV seasons. The show remained in the top 10 for seven of its nine seasons.

The series finale was seen by 40.2 million viewers.

Spin-offs
, All in the Family has the most spin-offs for a US prime-time television series, directly spawning five other shows, three of which were very successful, as well as two of those spin-offs each having a spin-off of their own:

 * The first spin-off was Maude, which debuted in September 1972. It features Edith's acerbic cousin Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur), who first appeared on All in the Family in the December 1971 episode "Cousin Maude's Visit", visiting to take care of the influenza-suffering Bunkers. In March 1972, at the end of the series' second season, the character was again featured in the episode "Maude". In this episode, a "backdoor pilot" for a new series, Archie and Edith visit her home in Westchester County to attend the wedding of her daughter Carol. Bill Macy played Maude's husband Walter and Marcia Rodd played Carol; Rodd was replaced by Adrienne Barbeau for the series. The show lasted for six seasons and 141 episodes, airing its final episode in April 1978.
 * Good Times is considered by some to be a spin-off of Maude, as the show's focus was Florida Evans, a character first appearing on Maude during its initial seasons as the Findlays' black maid. But the character's history and situation were changed for the new show. According to producer Allan Manings, "It wasn't really a spin-off." The show features no reference to Maude, changes the name of Florida's husband from Henry to James, and sets the show in a Chicago housing project. It ran for six seasons from February 1974 to August 1979.
 * The second and longest-lasting spin-off of All in the Family was The Jeffersons. Debuting on CBS in January 1975, The Jeffersons lasted 11 seasons and 253 episodes (more than All in the Family's nine seasons and 208 episodes). The main characters were the Bunkers' black former next-door neighbors George and Louise Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford). George was the owner of seven successful dry-cleaning stores, and the series featured their life after moving from the Bunkers' working-class neighborhood to a luxury high-rise apartment building in Manhattan's Upper East Side.
 * Checking In was spun off from The Jeffersons, focusing on the Jeffersons' maid Florence Johnston, working as an executive housekeeper at the St. Frederick Hotel in Manhattan. It only lasted four weeks in April 1981, and the character returned to her old job as the Jeffersons' maid.
 * Archie Bunker's Place was technically a spin-off, but was essentially a renamed continuation of the series, beginning in September 1979 following the final season of the original. It was primarily set in the titular neighborhood tavern which Archie Bunker purchased in the eighth season of All in the Family. It aired for four seasons, until April 1983.
 * Gloria was the third spin-off of All in the Family, focusing on now-divorced Gloria, starting a new life as an assistant trainee to a couple of veterinarians in Foxridge, New York. It premiered in September 1982, and ran for one season.
 * 704 Hauser features the Bunkers' house with a new family, the Cumberbatches. It was an inversion of the formula of the original, featuring a liberal black couple with a conservative son, who is dating a Jewish woman. Gloria and Mike's son Joey Stivic, now in his 20s, makes a brief appearance in the first episode. Five episodes aired in April and May 1994. The sixth episode was unaired.

Specials
At the height of the show's popularity, Henry Fonda hosted a special one-hour retrospective of All in the Family and its impact on American television. It included clips from the show's most memorable episodes up to that time. It was titled The Best of "All in the Family" and aired on December 21, 1974.

On February 16, 1991, CBS aired a 90-minute retrospective, All in the Family 20th Anniversary Special, hosted by Norman Lear to commemorate the show's 20th anniversary. It featured a compilation of clips from the show's best moments, and interviews with the four main cast members. The special was so well received by the viewing audience CBS aired reruns of All in the Family during its summer schedule in 1991, garnering higher ratings than the new series scheduled next to it, Norman Lear's sitcom Sunday Dinner. The latter was Lear's return to TV series producing after a seven-year absence, and was cancelled after the six-week tryout run due to being poorly received by audiences.

On May 22, 2019, ABC broadcast Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons, produced by Lear and Jimmy Kimmel and starring Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei, Jamie Foxx, Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, Kerry Washington and Ellie Kemper.

A second Live in Front of A Studio Audience special was announced in early November 2019 to air on Wednesday December 18, this time pairing the show with Good Times.

Home media
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment) released the first six seasons of All in the Family on DVD in Region 1 between 2002 and 2007. No further seasons were released, because the sales figures did not match Sony's expectations.

In June 2010, Shout! Factory announced that it had acquired the rights to the series and has since released the remaining three seasons.

In October 2012, Shout! Factory released All in the Family – The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1. The 28-disc boxed set features all 208 episodes of the series, as well as bonus features.

In February 2018, Sony released All in the Family- Seasons 1–5 on DVD in Region 1. The 15-disc set features all episodes from the first five seasons.

Cultural impact
As one of US television's most acclaimed and groundbreaking programs, All in the Family has been referenced or parodied in countless other forms of media. References on other sitcoms include That '70s Show, The Simpsons, and Family Guy.

Popular T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers showing O'Connor's image and farcically promoting "Archie Bunker for President" appeared around the time of the 1972 presidential election. In 1998, All in the Family was honored on a 33-cent stamp by the USPS.

Archie and Edith Bunker's chairs are on display in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The originals had been purchased by the show's set designer for a few dollars at a local Goodwill thrift store and were given to the Smithsonian (for an exhibit on American television history) in 1978. It cost producers thousands of dollars to create replicas to replace the originals.

Then-US President Richard Nixon can be heard discussing the show (specifically the 1971 episodes "Writing the President" and "Judging Books by Covers") on one of the infamous Watergate tapes.

Rapper Redman has made references to Archie Bunker in a few of his songs, specifically his smoking of large cigars.

Mad parodied the series in its 1973 special issue #11 entitled "Gall in the Family Fare", which also included a free flexi-disc record so the reader could listen to the parody as they read it.

Online Film & Television Association Awards
===Primetime Emmy Awards===

title: All in the Family


text:
Chinese name

Chinese names are personal names used by individuals from Greater China and other parts of the Sinophone world. Sometimes the same set of Chinese characters could be chosen as a Chinese name, a Hong Kong name, a Japanese name, a Korean name, a Malaysian Chinese name, or a Vietnamese name, but they would be spelled differently due to their varying historical pronunciation of Chinese characters.

Many modern Chinese names consist of a mono-symbolic (single-symbol) surname (xìngshì; 姓氏), which comes first, followed by a given name (míng; ), which is almost always disyllabic, consisting of two characters. Prior to the 21st century, most educated Chinese men also used a "courtesy name" or "style name" (zì; ) by which they were known among those outside their family and closest friends. Respected artists or poets will sometimes also use a professional "art name" (hào; ) among their social peers.

From at least the time of the Shang dynasty, the Chinese observed a number of naming taboos regulating who may or may not use a person's given name (without being disrespectful). In general, using the given name connoted the speaker's authority and superior position to the addressee. Peers and younger relatives were barred from speaking it. Owing to this, many historical Chinese figures—particularly emperors—used a half-dozen or more different names in different contexts and for different speakers. Those possessing names (sometimes even mere homophones) identical to the emperor's were frequently forced to change them. The normalization of personal names after the May Fourth Movement has generally eradicated aliases such as the school name and courtesy name but traces of the old taboos remain, particularly within families.

History
Although some terms from the ancient Chinese naming system, such as xìng and míng, are still used today, it used to be much more complex.

In the first half of the 1st millennium BC, during the Zhou dynasty, members of the Chinese nobility could possess up to four different names—personal names (míng ), clan names (xìng ), lineage names (shì ), and "style" or "courtesy" names (zì )— as well as up to two titles: standard titles (jué ), and posthumous titles (shì or shìhào ).

Commoners possessed only a personal name (ming), and the modern concept of a "surname" or "family name" did not yet exist at any level of society. The old lineage (shi) and clan names (xing) began to become "family names" in the modern sense and trickle down to commoners around 500 BC, during the late Spring and Autumn period, but the process took several centuries to complete, and it was not until the late Han dynasty (1st and 2nd centuries AD) that all Chinese commoners had surnames.

Family names
Although there are currently over 6,000 Chinese surnames including non-Han Chinese surnames in use in China, the colloquial expression for the "Chinese people" is Bǎixìng  "Hundred Surnames", and a mere hundred surnames still make up over 85% of China's 1.3 billion citizens. In fact, just the top three—Wang, Li , and Zhang —cover more than 20% of the population. This homogeneity results from the great majority of Han family names having only one character, while the small number of compound surnames is mostly restricted to minority groups.

Chinese surnames arose from two separate prehistoric traditions: the and the shì. The original xìng were clans of royalty at the Shang court and always included the radical. The shì did not originate from families, but denoted fiefs, states, and titles granted or recognized by the Shang court. Apart from the Jiang and Yao  families, the original xìng have nearly disappeared but the terms ironically reversed their meaning. Xìng is now used to describe the shì surnames which replaced them, while shì is used to refer to maiden names.

The enormous modern clans sometimes share ancestral halls with one another, but actually consist of many different lineages gathered under a single name. As an example, the surname Ma includes descendants of the Warring States–era bureaucrat Zhao She, descendants of his subjects in his fief of Mafu, Koreans from an unrelated confederation, and Muslims from all over western China who chose it to honor Muhammad.

Traditionally, a married woman keeps her name unchanged, without adopting her husband's surname. A child would inherit his or her father's surname. This is still the norm in mainland China, though the marriage law explicitly states that a child may use either parent's surname. It is also possible, though far less common, for a child to combine both parents' surnames. Due to Western influence, the tradition of a woman changing her last name, or prepending her husband's to her own, is reflected in some Hong Kong names and Macao names.

Given names
Given names show much greater diversity than the surnames, while still being restricted almost universally to one or two syllables. Including variant forms, there are at least 106,000 individual Chinese characters, but as of 2006, in the People's Republic of China Public Security Bureau only approximately 32,000 are supported for computer input and even fewer are in common use. Given names are chosen based on a range of factors, including possession of pleasing sound and tonal qualities, as well as bearing positive associations or a beautiful shape. Two-character ming may be chosen for each character's separate meaning and qualities, but the name remains a single unit which is almost always said together even when the combination no longer 'means' anything.

Today, two-character names are more common and make up more than 80% of Chinese names. However, this custom has been consistent only since the Ming dynasty. About 70% of all names were only one character long during the early Han and that rose beyond 98% after the usurping Wang Mang banned all two-character names outright. Although his Xin dynasty was short-lived, the law was not repealed until 400 years later, when northern invasions and interest in establishing lineages revived interest in such longer names. The Tang and Song saw populations with a majority of two-character names for the first time, but the Liao between them and the Yuan afterward both preferred single character names. The restoration of Han dominance under the Ming, promotion of Han culture under the Qing, and development of generation names established the current traditions.

Given names resonant of qualities which are perceived to be either masculine or feminine are frequently given, with males being linked with strength and firmness and females with beauty and flowers. It is also more common for female names to employ diminutives like Xiǎo or doubled characters in their formal names, although there are famous male examples such as Deng Xiaoping and Yo-Yo Ma. People from the countryside previously often bore names that reflect rural life—for example, Daniu (, lit. "Big Bull") and Dazhu (, lit. "Big Pole")—but such names are becoming less common.

It is also considered bad form to name a child after a famous person, although tens of thousands might happen to share a common name such as "Liu Xiang". Similarly, owing to the traditional naming taboos, it is very uncommon in China to name a child directly after a relative, since such children would permit junior family members to inappropriately use the personal names of senior ones. Ancestors can leave a different kind of mark: Chinese naming schemes often employ a generation name. Every child recorded into the family records in each generation would share an identical character in their names. Sixteen, thirty-two, or more generations would be worked out in advance to form a generation poem. For example, the one selected in 1737 for the family of Mao Zedong read:

 * 立顯榮朝士  Stand tall & display unstintingly before gentlemen,
 * 文方運濟祥  And study & method will expand the borders of our fortune.
 * 祖恩貽澤遠  Ancestral favors bequeath kindness through the ages,
 * 世代永承昌  Descendants forever obliged for their prosperity.

This scheme was in its fourteenth generation when Mao rejected it for the naming of his own children, preferring to give his sons the generational name An (, lit. "Lofty", "Proud") instead. A similar practice was observed regarding the stage names of Chinese opera performers: all the students entering a training academy in the same year would adopt the same first character in their new "given name". For example, as part of the class entering the National Drama School in 1933, Li Yuru adopted a name with the central character "jade".

Depending on the region and particular family, daughters were not entered into the family records and thus did not share the boys' generation name, although they may have borne a separate one among themselves. Even where generation names are not used, sibling names are frequently related. For example, a boy named Song might have a sister named Mei. In some families, the siblings' names have the same radical. For example, in the Jia (賈) clan in Dream of the Red Chamber, a novel mirroring the rise and decline of the Qing dynasty, there is Zheng, She , and Min in the first generation, Lian (璉), Zhen , and Huan (環) in the second, and Yun (芸), Qin (芹), and Lan (蘭) in the third.

More recently, although generation names have become less common, many personal names reflect periods of Chinese history. For example, following the victory of the Communists in the Civil War, many Chinese bore "revolutionary names" such as Qiangguo or Dongfeng. Similarly, on Taiwan, it used to be common to incorporate one of the four characters of the name "Republic of China" into masculine names. Periodic fad names like Aoyun also appear. Owing to both effects, there has also been a recent trend in China to hire fortune tellers to change people's names to new ones more in accordance with traditional Taoist and five element practices. In creating a new Chinese name, it is sometimes the practice to analyze the number of strokes in the characters used in the potential name and attempt to use characters that produce specific totals of strokes.

Spelling
The process of converting Chinese names into a phonetic alphabet is called romanization.

In mainland China, Chinese names have been romanized using the Hanyu Pinyin system since 1958. Although experiments with the complete conversion of Chinese to the Pinyin alphabet failed, it remains in common use and has become the transcription system of the United Nations and the International Organization for Standardization. Taiwan officially adopted Hanyu Pinyin as one of their romanisation schemes in 2009, although it continues to allow its citizens to use other romanisations on official documents such as passports, of which Hanyu Pinyin remains unpopular. The system is easily identified by its frequent use of letters uncommon in English, such as "q", "x", and "z"; when tones are included, they are noted via tone marks. In Pinyin, is written as Máo Zédōng.

Proper use of Pinyin means treating the surname and given name as precisely two separate words with no spaces between the letters of multiple Chinese characters. For example, "" is properly rendered either with its tone marks as "Wáng Xiùyīng" or without as "Wang Xiuying", but should not be written as "Wang Xiu Ying", "Wang XiuYing", "Wangxiuying", and so on. In the rare cases where a surname consists of more than one character, it too should be written as a unit: "Sima Qian", not "Si Ma Qian" or "Si Maqian". However, as the Chinese language makes almost no use of spaces, native speakers often do not know these rules and simply put a space between each Chinese character of their name, causing those used to alphabetical languages to think of the xing and ming as three words instead of two. Tone marks are also commonly omitted in practice.

Many overseas Chinese, Taiwanese and historic names still employ the older Wade–Giles system. This English-based system can be identified by its use of the digraphs "hs" (pinyin x) and "ts" (pinyin z and c) and by its use of hyphens to connect the syllables of words containing more than one character. Correct reading depends on the inclusion of superscript numbers and the use of apostrophes to distinguish between different consonants, but in practice both of these are commonly omitted. In Wade–Giles, is written as Mao Tse-tung, as the system hyphenates names between the characters. For example, Wang Xiuying and Sima Qian are written in Wade as "Wang2 Hsiu4-ying1" and "Ssu1Ma3 Ch'ien1".

Pinyin and Wade–Giles both represent the pronunciation of Mandarin, based on the Beijing dialect. In Hong Kong, Macau, and the diaspora communities in southeast Asia and abroad, people often romanize their names according to their own native language, for example, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Hakka. This occurs amid a plethora of competing romanization systems. During British colonial rule, some adopted English spelling conventions for their Hong Kong names: "Lee" for, "Shaw" for , and so forth. In Macau, Chinese names are similarly sometimes still transliterated based on Portuguese orthography and Jyutping. It is common practice for the Chinese diaspora communities to use spaces in between each character of their name.

Different names with the same spelling
It is common for many different Chinese names to have the same transliteration when tone is not marked (and therefore come from different Chinese characters).

For example, English spelling of the Chinese first name Ming has many different associated Chinese characters, all of which have different meanings. Therefore, when the name is written in Chinese, a person called Ming can have a completely different name from another person who is also called Ming.

Most mings share the same form between simplified and traditional Chinese.

 * 明 (meaning: bright, intelligent)
 * 名 (meaning: reputation)
 * 銘（铭）(meaning: poetic motto, inscribe)
 * 茗 (meaning: tea)
 * 命 (meaning: life, destiny)
 * 鳴（鸣）(meaning: sing)

Alternative names
From their earliest recorded history, the Chinese observed a number of naming taboos, avoiding the names of their elders, ancestors, and rulers out of respect and fear. As a result, the upper classes of traditional Chinese culture typically employed a variety of names over the course of their lives, and the emperors and sanctified deceased had still others.

Current naming practices are more straightforward and consistent, but a few pseudonyms or alternate names remain common.

When discussing Chinese writers, Chinese and Japanese scholars do not consistently use particular names, whether they are private names or alternative names.

Milk name
Traditionally, babies were named a hundred days after their birth; modern naming laws in the People's Republic of China grant the parents a month before requiring the baby to be registered. Upon birth, the parents often use a "milk name" —typically employing diminutives like, lit. "little") or doubled characters—before a formal name is settled upon, often in consultation with the grandparents. The milk name may be abandoned but is often continued as a form of familial nickname. A tradition sometimes attached to the milk name is to select an unpleasant name, to ward off demons who might wish to harm the child.

Nickname
Nicknames are acquired in much the same way they are in other countries. Not everyone has one. Most that do received theirs in childhood or adolescence from family or friends. Common Chinese nicknames are those based on a person's physical attributes, speaking style, or behavior. Names involving animals are common, although those animals may be associated with different attributes than they are in English: for example, Chinese cows are strong, not stupid; foxes are devious, not clever; pigs are lazy, but not dirty. Similarly, nicknames that might seem especially insulting in English—such as "Little Fatty" —are more acceptable in Chinese. One especially common method of creating nicknames is prefixing Ā- or Xiǎo  to the surname or the second character of the given name. Ā- is more common in the south and abroad, while Xiǎo is common throughout China. Both Ā- and Xiǎo are distinguished from Lǎo (, "old" but see below for usage). Nicknames are rarely used in formal or semi-formal settings, although a famous exception is A-bian.

English alias in mainland China
English is taught throughout China's secondary schools and the English language section is a required component of the Gaokao, China's college entrance examination. Many Chinese teenagers thus acquire Western names, commonly of English origin, which they may keep and use as nicknames even in Chinese-language contexts. Chinese may adopt English names for a variety of reasons, including foreigners' difficulty with Chinese tones and better integration of people working in foreign enterprises. Established English names chosen by Chinese may also be those rarely used by native English speakers.

English alias in Chinese diaspora
Hong Kong names often feature an English alias. 25.8% of Hongkongers have English given names as part of their legal names; a further 38.3% of Hongkongers go by English given names even though those are not part of their legal names; the two figures add up to a total of 64.1% of Hongkongers having English names, according to a survey of 2049 respondents in 2015. More unusual names made and adopted by Hongkongers are created by modifying normal English names – either by deleting, inserting or substituting specific letters (e.g. Kith, Sonija, Garbie), or by emulating the phonetic sounds of the Chinese name (e.g. Hacken Lee from Lee Hak-kan. English aliases are widely used at schools, at work, and in social circles.

In Malaysia and Singapore, it is equally acceptable for Western names to appear before or after the Chinese given name, in Latin characters. Thus, the Singaporean President Tony Tan might see his name written as "Tony Tan Keng Yam" or "Tan Keng Yam Tony". Individuals are free to register their legal names in either format on their identity cards. In general use, the English name first version is typically preferred as it keeps the correct order for both systems; however, for administrative purposes, the government agencies tend to place the English name last to organize lists of names and databases more easily, similar to the Western practice of organizing names with the last name first followed by a comma ("Smith, John"). In Singapore, there is an option to include the Chinese characters on one's National Registration Identity Card.

In Indonesia, one of the countries with the largest Chinese diaspora population, the Indonesian Chinese in Indonesia and in diaspora has mostly adopted Indonesian-sounding variations of Chinese names due to decades of regulation and acculturation. Conversely, the usage of these Indonesian-sounding Chinese names are not restricted for surnames, and many are used liberally between other surnames since many Indonesian Chinese did not keep track their Chinese (sur)names anymore, and even used by non-Chinese people (with some names being borrowing from regional languages and names).

Among Chinese diaspora residing in Western countries, it is becoming common practice for parents to give their children a Western name as their official first name, with the Chinese given name being officially recorded as a middle name.

School name
The school name was a separate formal name used by the child while they were at school.

As binomial nomenclature is also called xuémíng in Chinese, the school name is also sometimes now referenced as the to avoid confusion.

Courtesy name
Upon maturity, it was common for educated males to acquire a courtesy name (, zì or, biǎozì) either from one's parents, a teacher, or self-selection. The name commonly mirrored the meaning of one's given name or displayed his birth order within his family.

The practice was a consequence of admonitions in the Book of Rites that among adults it is disrespectful to be addressed by one's given name by others within the same generation. The true given name was reserved for the use of one's elders, while the courtesy name was employed by peers on formal occasions and in writing. The practice was decried by the May Fourth Movement and has been largely abandoned.

Pseudonym
Pseudonyms or aliases or pen names  were self-selected alternative courtesy names, most commonly three or four characters long. They may have originated from too many people having the same courtesy name.

Some—but by no means most—authors do continue to employ stylized pen names. One example is the poet Zhao Zhenkai, whose pen name is "Bei Dao".

Posthumous name
Posthumous names were honorary names selected after a person's death, used extensively for royalty. The common "names" of most Chinese emperors before the Tang dynasty—with the pointed exception of Shi Huangdi—are their posthumous ones. In addition to emperors, successful courtiers and politicians such as Sun Yat-sen also occasionally received posthumous titles.

Temple name
The temple name of the emperor inscribed on the spiritual tablets of the imperial ancestral temple often differed from his posthumous name. The structure eventually became highly restricted, consisting of a single adjective and either or. These common "names" of the emperors between the Tang and the Yuan are their temple ones.

Era name
The era name arose from the custom of dating years by the reigns of the ruling emperors. Under the Han, the practice began of changing regnal names as means of dispensing with bad luck and attracting better. Almost all era names were literary and employed exactly two characters. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, emperors had largely dispensed with the practice and kept a single era name during their reign, such that it is customary to refer to Ming and Qing emperors by their era names.

Forms of address
Within families, it is often considered inappropriate or even offensive to use the given names of relatives who are senior to the speaker. Instead, it is more customary to identify each family member by abstract hierarchical connections: among siblings, gender and birth order (big sister, second sister, and so on); for the extended family, the manner of relationship (by birth or marriage; from the maternal or paternal side).

The hierarchical titles of junior relatives are seldom used except in formal situations, or as indirect reference when speaking to family members who are even younger than the person in question. Children can be called by their given names, or their parents may use their nicknames.

When speaking of non-family social acquaintances, people are generally referred to by a title, for example Mother Li or Mrs. Zhu. Personal names can be used when referring to adult friends or to children, although, unlike in the West, referring to somebody by their full name (including surname) is common even among friends, especially if the person's full name is only composed of two or three syllables. It is common to refer to a person as lǎo (, old) or xiǎo (, young) followed by their family name, thus Lǎo Wáng or Xiǎo Zhān (小战). Xiǎo is also frequently used as a diminutive, when it is typically paired with the second or only character in a person's name, rather than the surname. Because old people are well respected in Chinese society, lǎo (old) does not carry disrespect, offense or any negative implications even if it is used to refer to an older woman. Despite this, it is advisable for non-Chinese to avoid calling a person xiǎo-something or lǎo-something unless they are so-called by other Chinese people and it is clear that the appellation is acceptable and widely used. Otherwise, the use of the person's full name, or alternatively, their surname followed by  or  is relatively neutral and unlikely to cause offense.

Within school settings and when addressing former classmates, it is common to refer to them as older siblings, e.g. elder brother Zhao or e.g. elder sister Zhang  if they were of senior classes, or simply to show respect or closeness. The opposite (e.g. younger brother Zhao) is rarely used. This custom spawns from traditional forms of respectful address, where it was considered rude to directly address your seniors.

Whereas titles in many cultures are commonly solely determined by gender and, in some cases, marital status, the occupation or even work title of a person can be used as a title as a sign of respect in common address in Chinese culture. Because of the prestigious position of a teacher in traditional culture, a teacher is invariably addressed as such by his or her students (e.g. ), and commonly by others as a mark of respect. Where applicable, "Teacher Surname" is considered more respectful than "Mr/Mrs/Miss Surname" in Chinese. A professor is also commonly addressed as "teacher", though "professor" is also accepted as a respectful title. By extension, a junior or less experienced member of a work place or profession would address a more senior member as "Teacher".

Similarly, engineers are often addressed as such, though often shortened to simply the first character of the word "engineer" –. Should the person being addressed be the head of a company (or simply the middle manager of another company to whom you would like to show respect), one might equally address them by the title "zǒng", which means "general" or "overall", and is the first character of titles such as "Director General" or "general manager" (e.g. ), or, if they are slightly lower down on the corporate hierarchy but nonetheless a manager, by affixing Jīnglǐ (, manager).

Unusual names
Because the small number of Chinese surnames leads to confusion in social environments, and because some Chinese parents have a desire to give individuality, some Chinese have received unusual given names. As of April 2009, about 60 million Chinese people have unusual characters in their names. A 2006 report by the Chinese public security bureau stated that of about 55,000 Chinese characters used in the People's Republic of China, only 32,232 of those are supported by the ministry's computers. The PRC government has asked individuals with unusual names to change them so they can get new computer-readable public identity cards, and the diversity prevents them from receiving new identity cards if they do not change their names.

Beginning in at least 2003, the PRC government has been writing a list of standardized characters for everyday usage in life, which would be the pool of characters to select from when a child is given his or her name. Originally the limits were to go in place in 2005. In April 2009, the list had been revised 70 times, and it still has not been put into effect.

Wang Daliang, a China Youth University for Political Sciences linguistics scholar, said that "Using obscure names to avoid duplication of names or to be unique is not good. Now a lot of people are perplexed by their names. The computer cannot even recognize them and people cannot read them. This has become an obstacle in communication." Zhou Youyong, the dean of the Southeast University law school, argued that the ability to choose the name of one's children is a fundamental right, so the PRC government should be careful when making new naming laws.

While the vast majority of Han Chinese names consist of two or three characters, there are some Han Chinese with longer names, up to 15 characters. In addition, transliteration of ethnic languages into Chinese characters often results in long names.

Taiwan
Han family names in Taiwan are similar to those in southeast China, as most families trace their origins to places such as Fujian and Guangdong. Indigenous Taiwanese have also been forced to adopt Chinese names as part of enforced Sinicization. The popularity distribution of family names in Taiwan as a whole differs somewhat from the distribution of names among all Han Chinese, with the family name Chen being particularly more common (about 11% in Taiwan, compared to about 3% in China). Local variations also exist.

Given names that consist of one character are much less common in Taiwan than on the mainland.

A traditional practice, now largely supplanted, was choosing deliberately unpleasant given names to ward off bad omens and evil spirits. For example, a boy facing a serious illness might be renamed Ti-sái (, lit. "Pig Shit") to indicate to the evil spirits that he was not worth their trouble. Similarly, a girl from a poor family might have the name Bóng-chī (, lit. "No Takers").

Nicknames (, gín-á-miâ, "child names") are common and generally adopt the Southern Chinese practice of affixing the prefix "A-" to the last syllable of a person's name. Although these names are rarely used in formal contexts, there are a few public figures who are well known by their nicknames, including former president A-bian and the singer A-mei.

Word order
For mainland Chinese, Western publications usually preserve the Chinese naming order, with the family name first, followed by the given name. This presentation of Chinese-character names is similar to those of Korean names; it differs from the presentation of Japanese names, which are usually reversed in English so they are family name last. For people with just a single given name or with compound surnames and a single given name, the western name order may add to the complication of confusing the surname and the given name.

The word order of Hong Kong names gets complicated when one has a legal English given name. For example, a person who has Kuo as his surname, Chi Yung as his Cantonese given name, and Peter as his legal English given name would have his name rendered as "KUO, Chi Yung Peter" on his Hong Kong identity card, however, the position and the use of a comma might be varied as "KUO Chi Yung Peter" or "KUO Chi Yung, Peter" on court papers. His name is much more likely to be printed as Peter Kuo Chi-yung (with a hyphen) or Peter Kuo on newspapers and academic journals.

Hyphen or Spacing between given names
Hong Kong names, Malaysian Chinese names and Singaporean Chinese names usually expressed in three parts (e.g., Goh Chok Tong), with spacing between their given names.

Unlike mainland Chinese, Taiwanese people usually place a dash between the two characters of the given name, similar to Korean names. This is also the case for the standard styling of Hong Kong Chinese names, where the given name is hyphenated.

Comparison chart
According to the Chicago Manual of Style, Chinese names are indexed by the family name with no inversion and no comma, unless it is of a Chinese person who has adopted a Western name.

In Japanese
In the Japanese language, Chinese names can be pronounced either approximating the original Chinese, the Local reading (現地読み) of the characters, or using a Sino-Japanese On'yomi reading (音読み) to pronounce the Chinese characters. Local readings are often written in katakana rather than kanji, but not always. For example, 毛泽东 (Mao Zedong) is pronounced Mō Takutō using an On'yomi reading, whereas Beijing (北京) is spelled with kanji but pronounced Pekin (ペキン), with a local reading (which may also be considered a post-Tōsō-on reading), rather than Hokkyō (which would be the Kan-on reading).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Chinese name


text:
Talk:List of books banned by governments

10,000 Dresses
Is 10,000 Dresses banned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.108.176.80 (talk) 06:45, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

 * Where specifically do you mean? Cooljeanius (talk) (contribs) 02:34, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Book banning
In the U.S., books can be challenged by individuals and sometimes, if the demand is great enough they will be removed from school and libraries. However, this is not government book banning such as occurs in other countries. Anyone can still buy the book. Parents who send children to school do have the right to request changes to curriculum, as do people who pay taxes for libraries that in their community can have voice their opinion about which are purchased. Owners of bookstores (online or physical) should be able to determine what books they carry. Those who say they do not have the right to do this are limiting the rights of other people. If a book is actually banned in the U.S. they would not be available. But actually they're quite easy to purchase. However, nobody should be forced to buy them. 2600:8803:F506:7A00:DC71:8FB9:5898:A617 (talk) 22:34, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

 * So, while ignoring the normative portions, since this isn't the place for those sorts of debates, I'd just like to point out that there is a separate list called "List of most commonly challenged books in the United States" that seems to be more what you are talking about. Cooljeanius (talk) (contribs) 04:13, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
 * You have it backwards. This list should be officially banned books. Mostly empty. The other link you provided can be for the performative politicians like yourself. 73.221.104.246 (talk) 15:00, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I said. The separate list, List of most commonly challenged books in the United States, is the one for what most political book banning debates are about, while this list, List of books banned by governments, is for officially banned books. We seem to be in violent agreement. Cooljeanius (talk) (contribs) 23:55, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

What a joke
I can go on Amazon and buy every one of these books. Nothing here is banned in the US. I assume the whole list is more of a political statement by the individual authors. If you're going to put historical bannings be sure to include that they didn't let me read batman comics in school twenty years ago. Better document that. 73.221.104.246 (talk) 14:58, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Shockingly, the US isn't the only nation in the world.
 * None of these books are currently “Banned” in democratic countries and are available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. to anyone who wants to buy them. WP is sometimes laughable. 2600:1700:1111:5940:B9C1:7C8F:22C5:6745 (talk) 20:59, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
 * If you'd actually read the article, you'd realize this list includes historical banning, and yes, some of them were banned by the governments of Democracies. Bkatcher (talk) 00:18, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I did read the article. The short description says “This article is about books banned by governments.” No modern, democratic government bans books, none. Some schools and libraries, locally restrict/ban books in various countries, but that subject already has 100 articles. This article is misleading. It makes no commentary about this being a historical listing and it makes no commentary about modern views. It also says nothing about theocratic and autocratic governments that still ban books in the 21 century. It is basically useless to any uninformed reader. An encyclopedia can do better. 2600:1700:1111:5940:B9C1:7C8F:22C5:6745 (talk) 03:11, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It literally has the year the books were banned. No one who even skims this article will think this is a current list. Bkatcher (talk) 03:58, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * And none of those books are still banned by modern democracies, yet that failed to be mentioned. One sentence would do wonders or a split between historical and current bans. How could anyone not think that this is context that matters? It should certainly matter to an “encyclopedia”. 2600:1700:1111:5940:B9C1:7C8F:22C5:6745 (talk) 06:48, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * User:Cooljeanius has has adjusted the wording in the lead paragraph to make it clearer that the list encompasses historical bannings. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 15:55, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Much improved clarity, thanks all. 2600:1700:1111:5940:40FA:80F5:FDC4:F932 (talk) 19:11, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Ridiculous Catcher in the Rye Sequel
This book is not banned in any form of censorship by a government, it is a copyright infringement lawsuit. It is misleading to include it and it would lead to all kinds of fandom derivative works needing to be added, misleadingly, to this list when it is clearly about government censorship. Here is a recent example, https://www.thebookseller.com/news/tolkien-estate-wins-two-lawsuits-against-author-of-unauthorised-lord-of-the-rings-sequel is this book banned by the government? No sane person would say that a government is censoring a Lord of the Ring sequel. @Ymblanter please self revert, Wikipedia doesn’t need to be hard and I am not sure what value you are adding with just a review of the edits. 2600:1700:1111:5940:8486:A76E:6775:9A26 (talk) 04:53, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Please wait until this discussion has been completed or died out. I myself do not have an opinion on the matter, but if you keep reverting we will just protect the article and you lose physical ability to edit it. Please read WP:BRD. Ymblanter (talk) 08:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If you don’t have a position why are you reverting me? You realize the other party goes months without editing? This kind of garbage is why Wikipedia is losing donors and influence. My comments are straight forward, reasonable and obviously not vandalism. 2600:1700:1111:5940:8486:A76E:6775:9A26 (talk) 18:48, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * As predicted, 4 weeks after my original edit and there is no response to the talk page discussion. 2600:1700:1111:5940:F4BE:EB60:3563:4A52 (talk) 03:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Not sure why you expect an answer. So far, you only provided a personal opinion. Ymblanter (talk) 17:28, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * IP might be removing it for the wrong reasons, but it's been tagged as unsourced since 2022 so I removed it. DonQuixote (talk) 18:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! (and I did have unsourced as the first word in my edit summary) 2600:1700:1111:5940:F4BE:EB60:3563:4A52 (talk) 22:51, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Bible
This list arbitrarily referenced the ban of the Bible in Spain many years ago and for one denominational translation in the 21st century. This was fairly misleading presentation (potentially undue weight to the plight of the banned denomination). As such, I have instead created a new section unambiguously indicating that banning of the Bible is a considerably broader topic with its own main article.-- Jeffro 77 Talk 07:25, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Australia
Australia is not included. The bans here come under 'injunction'. They even banned the book about a murdered criminal (Michael McGurk). If I find the data in my old files I will add. For a while it was still on amazon as 'not available'. The author was prohibited from speaking about it. Banned books should be translated to to keep them alive. 2001:8003:A070:7F00:CD8E:7C27:A108:7C8 (talk) 01:05, 27 May 2024 (UTC)