What did the ancients pay attention to when choosing names?
1. The ancient characters are related to the characters. "Bai Hu Tong: Names" says: "When you name a name, you know its words; when you hear it, you know its name." The ancients generally used methods such as words with similar meanings, complements, and antonyms to select words based on names. Take the characters involved in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as an example, such as Zhuge Liang, whose courtesy name is synonymous with Ming; Wei Yan, whose courtesy name is long, which means close to long; Lu Su, whose courtesy name is closely related to Su; Huang Gai, whose courtesy name is Gongfu, etc. . Complementary, such as: Sun Quan, courtesy name Zhongmou, Quan and Mou complement each other; Zhou Yu, courtesy name, jade and gold are all beautiful jade; Pan Zhang, Wen Jue, Zhang Jue, Zhang Jue are all jade articles and gifts.
2. Baby name, which is what we call baby name today. After reading it, I chose an official name as my scientific name. Some people have the same scientific name as their real name. The word "Guanzi" refers to the word "Guanzi" when performing the Guanzi ceremony. In ancient China, there were 20 lines of Guanzi ritual. In fact, most people were over 20 years old when they were crowned. Giving "gifts" to women when they turn 15 is also called "mourning". With the hairpin, and with the hairpin, it’s time to insert the hairpin. That means you are an adult and can get married.
3. The "nickname" of the ancients. In addition to names and characters, ancient literati also had a very important title - a nickname. The so-called nickname was actually a person's nickname, and most of them were nicknames given by literati. In essence, it is no different from calling your friends "Er Gou" and "Tie Dan" today, but the cultural sentiment is much different. For example, "Dongpo layman" is Su Shi's name, so the world also calls him Su Dongpo. "Called Dongpo Elbow" appears. Sometimes, people get used to it and people forget its original name, such as Zheng Banqiao. Banqiao is the number and Xie is the name. Today, people only know Zheng Banqiao, but not Zheng Xie.
4. Birth status. During the Spring and Autumn Period, when a person named Ji was born, the fetus was in an abnormal position, with the feet down and the head up, so it was named "Ji Sheng". When Duke Cheng of Jin Dynasty was born, he had a birthmark on his buttocks, so he was named "Black Buttocks"; when Confucius was born, he was named Qiu because of the depression in the middle of his head. The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches are named. The kings of Xia, Yin Jia and Kong Jiahe, and the kings of Shang all belong to the heavenly stems and earthly branches. The cook mentioned in "Zhuangzi" is not a person named "Ding", but a cook named "Ding". What's the nicest ancient name you've ever heard?
Wang Xizhi, Gu Kaizhi, Wang Wei, Lu Jiuyuan, Jing Ke, Wu Zixu, Xie Daoyun, Sima Xiangru, Xi Shi, Cai Wenji, etc.