Chinese character for yellow

It usually means “yellow” or serves as the surname Huang. In Chinese, 黄 is the character for the color yellow. In a person's name, keep Huang as a surname rather than translating it as “Yellow.”

Earlier forms appear in Shang oracle-bone inscriptions—records carved on bones and turtle shells for divination—in names and accounts of ritual offerings. Scholars disagree about what the earliest drawings depicted. Texts from the Warring States period of early Chinese history clearly use the character for yellow.

In Chinese five-color cosmology, a traditional scheme linking colors with parts of the world, yellow is associated with earth and the center.

Why can 黄 suggest pornography?

Some expressions about content use it for sexual or vulgar material. 黄色小说 refers to sexually explicit literature, while 黄色笑话 means dirty jokes. The sexual reading belongs to those expressions, not to 黄 by itself.

One historical account traces this newer sense through Western uses of “yellow” imported into Chinese and places its establishment in the mid-to-late 1940s.

Why are 黄 and 黃 different?

黄 is simplified Chinese; 黃 is traditional Chinese. They are separately encoded forms of the same character. Regional fonts may also draw a character differently, which is a separate kind of variation.