In the pre-Qin period, children were given their fathers' names when they were three months old.
Xu Shen, a philologist in the Eastern Han Dynasty, believed that names were originally produced because of the need to meet at night and identify them, so Shuo Wen Jie Zi said, "Names are pretentious, and they are from the mouth to the evening.
Those who are in the evening are invisible, and they don't meet each other, so they call themselves by their mouths. "
In ancient times, when a child was 3 months old, it was usually named by his father, which is the so-called "If the child was born in March, the father named him" in "Rites and Mourning". As for taking the word, it will be done at the age of 2 when the adult ceremony (crown ceremony) takes place.
It should be noted that later generations are not so particular about it. Sometimes, a "nickname" or a "milk name" is given first, and a formal name is taken only when you enter school at the age of six or seven.
Zuo Zhuan records that Shen Gui once put forward the "five principles" of choosing names and words.
The key to choosing a name is to choose a good word, which was relatively simple in ancient times, such as Yin Wang's fixed use of heavenly stems to enter names.
by the pre-Qin period, the emphasis on naming began to increase.
Shen Gui, a master of naming and a doctor of the State of Lu, once put forward the "five principles" for choosing names and words: "Faithfulness, righteousness, image, falsehood and classification." This is recorded in Zuo Zhuan's Six Years of Huan Gong. At that time, when the prince of Huan Gong was born, he asked Shen Gui how to name the prince. Shen Gui said this.
Shen Yi's specific explanation is: "take the famous life as the letter, take the moral life as the righteousness, take the kind of life as the image, take the things as false, and take the father as the class".
When choosing specific characters, Shen Gui emphasized that "not the country, not the officials, not the mountains and rivers, not the hidden diseases, not the animals, not the money."
Confucius' name "Qiu" was adopted by his father according to the principle of "taking life as an image".
After Confucius was born, it was found that the top of his head was special and sunken, which was called "the Wei Ding", so it was named "Qiu".
When Confucius had a son, it happened that Duke Zhao of Lu gave him a carp, so he named his son "Carp", which was based on the principle of "taking things as false".
Shen's naming principle reflects the naming custom in the pre-Qin period, and its core is "taboo".
The popularity of taboo names in feudal times in China began in the pre-Qin Dynasty.
"single word" was popular in naming in Han dynasty
Compared with the pre-Qin dynasty, the naming fashion in Han dynasty has changed a lot.
words of respect for the elderly, appellation, status and virtue have become the first choice for Chinese people to choose words. On the basis of the four words of Bo, Zhong, Shu and Ji commonly used by pre-Qin people, words such as Yuan, Chang, Er, Xiao, Gong, Weng, Jun, Chen, Hou, Bin, Shi, Min and Lang have been added.
For example, Huan Kuan, the author of The Theory of Salt and Iron, has the word "second public"; When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was ranked as Zhu Maichen of Jiuqing, the word was "Weng Zi".
The most striking feature of naming in the Han Dynasty is that people from the royal family to ordinary people were named with single words, such as Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, Emperor Liu Ying of Han Hui and Emperor Liu Heng of Han Wen.
among the 24 emperors with temple names in the eastern and western Han dynasties, only Liu Fuling, Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, took a double-character name. After he ascended the throne, he also removed the word "Ling" and changed it to the single word "Fu" for the sake of taboo.
The trend of choosing single-word names has a far-reaching influence on later generations. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, among the 21 emperors, only Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, and Li Longji, Emperor Xuanzong, had double-word names.
Most emperors in the Southern Song Dynasty and before were also single-word names, and it was not until the Ming and Qing Dynasties that single-word names were neglected. Among the 28 emperors in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, only Zhu Di, the Ming Emperor, was a single-word name.
"Biography of the Spring and Autumn Ram in Thirteen Years of Mourning for the Duke" records that "two people were indecent"
After Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty to build a new one, he regarded the single word as an ancient gift.
under the influence of Wang Mang's "respect for the past", single-word names became more popular.
why did the Han dynasty like single-word names? There is a saying in "Biography of the Spring and Autumn Ram in the Thirteen Years of Mourning for the Duke": "There are many commanders and soldiers in Jin and Wei who invaded Wei, and there are many men in Jin and Wei.
do you mean that there are many Jin and Wei dynasties? Scold two, and two are indecent. " Wei Manduo, a doctor of the Jin Dynasty, commanded the army to attack the country. People did not call him by his full name, but called him "Wei Duo", which was ironic because he took a double-character name and thought that the double-character name was not polite.
As for "two names are indecent", Gu Yanwu, a university scholar in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, made a textual research and found that the meaning of "two names" was misunderstood in The Biography of the Spring and Autumn Ram, which meant that one person should have two names, instead of taking two names.
The famous Taoist priest named Kou Qianzhi in the Northern Wei Dynasty
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the trend of taking two-character names gradually rose, and there were two characteristics in naming. First, the auxiliary word "zhi" was favored, and the name with "zhi" became fashionable; Second, the use of words between father and son, young and old is no longer taboo, and the phenomenon of the same word appears in the name.
For example, Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi have the word "Zhi" in their names.
Fei Songzhi was the name of the Southern Song Dynasty's annotation for The Three Kingdoms.
At that time, the word "zhi" was particularly popular. Those with high status or power often had the word "zhi" in their names, such as Fei Songzhi, a Southern Song Dynasty's annotation for The Three Kingdoms, and Kou Qianzhi, a famous Taoist priest in the Northern Wei Dynasty.
At that time, the royal family also had a special liking for the word "Zhi". For example, the younger brother of Emperor Xuandi of Jin Dynasty and King Xianping of Anping were called Sima Fu Zhi, and the son and King Runan were called Sima Liangzhi. Later generations included Sima Jingzhi and Sima Tanzhi ...
The name "Zhi" was favored in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
The word "Zhi" was still a sign of whether or not to join the church in the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
how do you distinguish between a devotee and a non-devotee, and know that the other person is with you? The difference lies in the word "zhi".
Later, Sun En, one of the leaders of the "Five Dou Mi Dao", made an insurrection, and many people with the word "Zhi" in their names were implicated and many people were killed, which proved this inference.
Of course, the reuse of the word "zhi" in people's names after the Tang and Song Dynasties has nothing to do with religion, but is purely a hobby.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, people took the name after the word "zhi", and there was also the word "monk".
For example, there was a general named Wang Sengbian in the Southern Dynasties, and a doctor named Yao Sengyuan in Liang Wudi ... "Yingying" and "Yuanyuan" were double names.
After the Tang and Song Dynasties, people tried their best to be safe and peaceful when naming their names, and they should avoid the same names as emperors and bad guys, instead of fierce words and bad words.
During the reign of Huizong in the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a man named "Sun Quan" in Pingle County, Jiangxi Province, who had the same name as the Lord Wu of the Three Kingdoms, so he was reported to be up to no good, "implying theft".
It is also important for the ancients to avoid ambiguity when naming names.
According to the Ming Emperor's Swimming Series, there was a student named Sun Yuegong who won the first prize in the Jiachen Court Trial in Yongle.
Zhu Di was unhappy when he saw the name. He felt that the words "Yue" and "Gong" added up to the word "violence", and forced Xing Kuan, the second champion, to become the second.
It is also taboo for the ancients to have names with the same word and homonym, which are popular in modern times.
The double name is also called "double name". In the eyes of the ancients, it was used by people with low status. Generally, concubines and prostitutes have multiple names, such as "Yingying" for Yuan Zhen's concubine and "Chen Yuanyuan" for Qinhuai famous prostitute.
Women's double names give men a sense of pleasure. People with status, especially men, don't use double names.
In addition to avoiding using indecent words, the ancients also paid great attention to the tone of words when naming them, and adopted the word "double-tone rhyme" as their name, so that words with loud syllables and dumb rhymes were not used as much as possible, no matter how good the meaning and beautiful the structure were.
In the Song Dynasty, "Five Elements" and "Eight Characters" were named together.
In the Tang and Song Dynasties, appellations such as Yu, Chen, Ru and You, and auxiliary words such as Ke, Ru, Si and Ye began to be favored.
There is also a retro tendency in the naming of Song people.
The words of respecting the old in the Han Dynasty, such as "old, old and old", are often included in the names. For example, the author of Dream of China in Tokyo is called Master Meng. The author of Heshan Collection is Wei Liaoweng.
in the song dynasty and later, the restrictions on naming were obviously increased.
In addition to the traditional taboo, we should also talk about Yin-Yang and Five Elements, birthdates, Zodiac Zodiac, Five Sectional Images, Eight Diagrams and Six hexagrams, etc.
Among them, the combination of "birthdates" and "Yin-Yang and Five Elements" is the most popular.
The so-called "eight characters" are also called "four pillars", that is, the annual column, the moon column, the sun column and the time column composed of a person's birth year, month, day and hour, and the four pillars add up to exactly eight words.
The "five elements" are composed of five words: gold, wood, water, fire and earth, representing different substances.
according to the "eight-character" principle, whatever is missing in life will be supplemented when it is named.
if "fire" is missing in life, the word with "fire" will be taken.
Emperor Hui, the successor of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming emperor, was named "Yun Lian" because of his lack of fire.
This is obviously a superstition. Hui Di lost his life precisely because of "a fire"-he set fire to himself in the palace during the "Jing Nan".
Another major change in naming in the Song Dynasty was the popularity of the "generation naming system".
The most complete family tree of China was compiled from the Yuanfeng period of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Word generation naming is also called "generation ranking".
before the song dynasty, although there was a phenomenon of naming by word generation, it was not common.
After the Song Dynasty, this naming method became the main means of naming by the ancients. All people of the same clan and generation used a fixed word to enter their names.
Zhu Yuanzhang's Sun Huidi was short of "fire" to be named Zhu Yunwen
By the Ming Dynasty, the word generation naming system was popular.
the word "allow" in the name of Ming Huidi Zhu Yunwen is a generational word.
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang gave his sons a generation of 2 words each. One of the princes said: "Allow Wen to follow the instructions of his ancestors, admire Wu Da Jun to win, take advantage of luck by the way, and make good use of Sheng by teachers." The popularity of "number" in the Yuan Dynasty is regarded as the name of people with low status
Among all dynasties, the number name is the most popular in the Yuan Dynasty.
Zhang Shicheng, one of the leaders of the rebel army in the late Yuan Dynasty, was originally named "94", and "Shi Cheng" was presented to him by a scholar.
It is said that this name actually scolds him, saying from Mencius: "A scholar is honest and a villain", and the other sentence is "a scholar is honest and a villain", secretly ridiculing Zhang Shicheng's ignorance.
this custom of naming numbers is really related to the government policy.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the Han people who had no jobs were not allowed to be named, and they could only be called by ranking, parents' age, etc. This is probably a special case of ancient name control.
A name is a person's code name, but when motivation, emotion and sustenance are added to the name, it becomes no longer simple.
a good name can affect a person's life, otherwise, it will make him tired of it.
In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, a man named Qian Tangxiu was badly hurt by his name.
according to Zhuang Chuo's "chicken ribs", at that time, Lin 'an (now Hangzhou), whose capital was just Qiantang in the Southern Song Dynasty, had a prestigious man named Qian Tangxiu in Huiji, who was recommended to Zhao Ding, the Prime Minister, but Gao Zong insisted on not using it, thinking that the name was unlucky: "Qian Tangxiu?"