Emberizinae

The Emberizinae belong to the family Fringillidae, which also includes the Fringillinae (finches). The Vietnamese name for the Emberizinae is Phân họ Sẻ đồng, the same as that for the Fringillinae.

Chinese:

The buntings in Chinese are all known as 鹀 wú. The word does not occur on its own, being found only in combination, and it is not necessarily a familiar term to the average Chinese. As cage birds, however, several of the buntings have popular names.

(Note: Japanese sources indicate that the character 鵐 was originally applied to the quails in Chinese. Use of the character to refer the シトド shitodo or bunting is said to be a Japanese innovation.)

Japanese:

Buntings were originally known as シトド shitodo in Japanese, written 鵐 or 巫鳥. (Note: This is an interesting case of a character existing in two forms: the form 巫 wū meaning 'shaman', used for its phonetic value and probably the original character, and 鵐 wú where the 'bird' radical has been added at the right to disambiguate the meaning. Other examples can be found at the orioles and wagtails.)

As noted above, the character 鵐 appears to originally have been applied to quails in Chinese and its use for the buntings may be a Japanese innovation.

シトド shitodo is now regarded as a literary or obselete term in Japanese, although many exotic buntings are known scientifically as shitodo. The main common names used for the native buntings are:

Name	Meaning	Characters	Meaning of characters	Referents
ホオジロ hō-jiro	'white-cheek'	頬白	cheek + white	Applied generally to wide range of buntings and used for the name of the family.
ホオアカ hō-aka	'red-cheek'	頬赤	cheek + red	Emberiza fucata and E. pusilla.
ノジコ no-jiko	'field jiko'	1. 野路子 2. 野鵐	1. field + road + child 2. field + bunting	E. sulphurata and E. rutila.
アオジ ao-ji	'blue ji'	1. 青鵐, also 2. 蒿雀	1. blue + bunting 2. mugwort + finch (from Chinese)	E. spodocephala, E. aureola, and E. citrinella.
クロジ kuro-ji	'black ji'	黒鵐	black + bunting	E. variabilis
カシラダカ kashira-daka	'head high'	頭高	head + high	E. rustica
チャキンチョウ chakin-chō	'tea gold bird' (or possibly 'tea-cloth bird')	茶金鳥	tea + gold + bird	E. melanocephala and E. bruniceps
ジュリン jurin		寿林	longevity + forest	Reed buntings: E. schoeniclus, E. yessoensis, E. pallasi.

The ji in no-jiko, ao-ji, and kuro-ji give the appearance of being etymologically related.

Vietnamese:

The buntings are officially known as Sẻ đồng or 'field sparrows' in Vietnamese. This name is also applied to some of the finches (Fringillinae).

Some dictionaries list Sẻ đất 'ground sparrow' as the Vietnamese word for 'bunting'.

In some bilingual dictionaries, the word Chim choi choi is sometimes applied to the buntings (and the whiteyes), although it is officially applied to the plovers.