Generational names for the 雲 family, when stringed together, is a poem!

For the Chinese, the name usually has 3 characters, i.e. the surname, followed by a 2-character given name in which the first character of the given name (i.e. the second character in the 3-character full name) indicates the person's generation in his family.

For example, Emperor Yong-zheng of Qing Dynasty has the given name Yin-zhen (胤禛) while his brothers' names all begin with the character "Yin" 胤. His sons' and nephews' given names all begin with the character Hong (弘). (The source of this information is wikipedia).

The list of generational names are traditionally decided many generations in advance by the ancestors and the male offsprings are expected to carry on the generational name.

In my family our surname is 雲 {Woon or Yun in Mandarin, meaning "cloud"} and our generational names (at present I only know for 4 generations) are as follows: 

• My father's generational name is 昌 {Sang or Chang in Mandarin, meaning prosperous or flourishing}
• The generational name that my brothers carry is 大 {Tai or Ta in Mandarin, meaning "big" or "great"}
• The generational name for my brothers' sons is  維 {Wei in Mandarin, meaning to defend / to safeguard / to protect / to uphold}
• The generational name for my brothers' grandsons is 天 {Tian in Mandarin, meaning "sky" or "heavens" or "day"}.  

Since we were young we had been taught to address our relatives /distant relatives with the generational name  昌 as uncles, while those with 大 in their names would be our cousins and those with the generational name 維 would be our nephews. 

I undertand that there are 51 generational names for the  雲 family and 天 is only about a quarter way through.  It seems when all the generational names for the 雲 family are read together, it becomes a beautiful poem with a story.   How fascinating!  Our ancestors who came out with the generational names could be great scholars or some learned scholars could have done the poem for the clan!