It's more like old (in a sign of respect way) and young in usage. Xiao is also a surname (the star of the Untamed, a very popular Cdrama was Xiao Zhan), I think Lao is but I don't think I've come across it much? I have noticed that a lot of times characters that aren't the mains might never be given full names in Cdramas, just Surname+something (or prefix+surname, depending on the character).
Subs are terrible for names. Sometimes they translate things (so you get the Young Lady This and whatnot) but often they just pick one way to refer to people and will use it no matter how obvious it is that isn't what is being said or makes sense for it to be used in that situation. It bugs me because sometimes there's a lot of character development being shown in how people refer to one another (do they go from Young Lady/Master Whatnot to the character's full name? Do they move from informal to formal for a specific scene?) and it's not even a case where there's no English equivalent (like switching formal and informal "you"), it *could* be done but they don't. Not sure if it's to make things easier for the subbing or they just think other language speakers won't understand.
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Date: 2023-11-24 02:41 pm (UTC)Subs are terrible for names. Sometimes they translate things (so you get the Young Lady This and whatnot) but often they just pick one way to refer to people and will use it no matter how obvious it is that isn't what is being said or makes sense for it to be used in that situation. It bugs me because sometimes there's a lot of character development being shown in how people refer to one another (do they go from Young Lady/Master Whatnot to the character's full name? Do they move from informal to formal for a specific scene?) and it's not even a case where there's no English equivalent (like switching formal and informal "you"), it *could* be done but they don't. Not sure if it's to make things easier for the subbing or they just think other language speakers won't understand.