In Chinese tradition, most children take their father's surname after birth. However, as the concept of equal rights between men and women gradually becomes more and more popular, there are also many cases where "children take their mother's surname".
Recently, a domestic parent-child column "Maternity and Baby Help" shared such a story.
Mr. Wang and his wife had a child of love just one year after their marriage. What surprised them was that they were pregnant with twins!
After the child was born, the couple placed The first problem before us is how to choose good names for our two children.
Originally, the family wanted to take the father’s surname, but when they realized that the wife’s surname was an extremely rare compound surname of “Zhongli”, the husband wanted the child to take the mother’s surname.
Worried about objections from the elderly, the couple first told their mother-in-law about the idea. Unexpectedly, her mother-in-law immediately agreed after hearing it and praised their daughter-in-law, "Your surname is so rare, so the name you chose will definitely be the same." It’s very special, how wonderful!”
The origin of compound surnames generally comes from three situations: coming from a feudal town, coming from a place of residence, and ethnic minorities changing their surnames to Chinese characters.
According to relevant information, the surname Zhongli ranks 433rd among the 100 surnames. It has two origins in history.
Firstly, during the Zhou Dynasty, Boyi’s descendants had the feudal state Zhongli State (in the Linhuaiguan area of ??present-day Anhui Province). In the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhongli State was destroyed by the Chu State, so the people of the country named them after their original names. Zhongli's family.
The second one can be traced back to the Song Dynasty founded by Song Weizi in the Spring and Autumn Period. They can be counted as descendants of Shang Tang's surname. Because their ancestors once gathered food in a place called Zhongli (today's Linhuaiguan area in Anhui Province), their descendants took the city as their surname and began to use "Zhongli" or "Zhong" as their surname.
In other words, the compound surname "Zhongli" and the single surname "Zhong" that everyone is familiar with are actually a family with the same blood.
for the same surname).
But when it comes to unpopular compound surnames, there is also a "fifth" surname.
This compound surname is derived from the Tian surname. It is said that when Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, unified the Central Plains, he moved away the large Tian family from Qi State during the Warring States Period. The surnames were divided into the first to eighth clans according to the order of migration;
In modern times, only the surname "Fifth" remains. Today, there are only more than a thousand people with the surname "Fifth" in China.
Just like the above story, there was once a family whose wife had the double surname "Fifth" and the child happened to be born in May, so they named the child "Fifth" after Mou Xing, which sounded nice and nice. Remember, it is a unique name.
Speaking of compound surnames, in fact, they may not be limited to two characters in actual situations. According to relevant CCTV reports, some ethnic minorities have compound surnames of more than three characters.
Do you know how many characters the longest existing surname has?
The answer is 17 characters, which is "Luna Lou Yu Gu Mu Zha Shu Duo" from the Yi ethnic group in Yunnan Province. "It's bitter, it's virtuous, it's joyful", I couldn't help but recite it.