This study examined the factors of place name changes in China from the perspective of sociolinguistics. The place name change factors were diachronically review by not differentiating their corresponding period from ancient time to modern times. Generally, China’s place naming has two principles – physical geographical factors, and human geographical factors. In this study, the human geographical factors were mainly looked at by dividing them further into political diplomatic factors and sociocultural factors. First of all, as for political diplomatic factors, the country has been through name changes during Cultural Revolution, due to ethnic minority policies and due to foreign relationship, military activity and migration. Secondly, sociocultural factor were found to be place name changes to avoid taboo language, to seek sophisticated naming, caused by contact with different peoples and due to historic and cultural preservation.