Abstract: This paper focuses on Chinese personal appellations, which include the spatial t erms "front" and "back". First, the paper discusses the issue from the perspective of temporal metaphor, and then applies Antu?ano's hypothesis of pro perty selection process and Boers's theory of parameter of variation to explain this phenomenon in details. The paper also discusses other Chinese compound word s containing the spatial terms "front" and "back" to conclude that metaphor is grounded from our bodily experience, and constrained by the interaction betwe en our body and physical /cultural environment. In short, the theories can enric h Chinese metaphor studies.