The most familiar word for a person is his or her own name. The surname is determined at birth. It is nothing more than choosing the father's surname or the mother's surname. Although there are many surnames, they are countable after all. There are only about 500 surnames still in use, but names are different. Chinese name culture is wonderful, broad and profound! As the saying goes: It is better to teach a child a skill than to give him a good name. A good name is also the expectation of parents and others for a new life. So what is the meaning of your name?
Name genealogy
The evolution of name culture
Nowadays names include surnames and given names, but the names of ancient people are still very different, including not only First and last name, and words. Chinese people's famous culture has also experienced many changes in its thousands of years of history, and different eras have different connotations and stories.
"Shuowen Jiezi" says: ?Name is self-named. From mouth to evening. Those who are in the evening are in the dark. Ming and Ming do not meet each other, so they name themselves with their mouths. ?
This is a way of interpreting names: when you say your name, you call yourself when introducing yourself to others. In ancient times, you might not recognize someone when you met them at night, so you had to introduce your name. This custom is still used today. When we introduce ourselves to others, the first step is to state our name.
Names during the Xia and Shang Dynasties were still immature. Even the names of palaces and emperors were in confusion, let alone their subjects. For example, although the emperors of the Xia Dynasty all had the surname Si, their names were very "weird", such as Si Xie, Si Bu Jiang, Si Kong Jia, etc. These names were very non-mainstream, and many of them were randomly chosen. The Shang Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty were not yet complete. I still remember the story in Zuo Zhuan. Yin Gong Year in the early Spring and Autumn Period that Duke Zhuang of Zheng defeated Duan Yu Yan. Duke Zhuang of Zheng was not born naturally, so his mother probably suffered a lot. Sin is not welcomed, so it is named Huansheng, which means it is caused by disobedience! There are also Jin Chenggong named Heihipu, Lu Chenggong named Heihu, Qi Huangong named Xiaobai and so on.
Although the so-called names, that is, names and characters, originated in the Shang Dynasty, their perfection and maturity only occurred in the middle and late Zhou Dynasty. Names and characters later formed a system. This system was still relatively common during the Republic of China. Nowadays, characters are just a matter of study for some literati.
The earliest classics that record names are "Book of Rites" and "Book of Rites? Tan Gong Shang": "young name, crown". It means that a person is given a name when he is young and a character is given when he is crowned. Kong Yingda made an annotation for "Book of Rites": "When he was born in three months, he was given a name. When he was twenty, he had to be a father. Friends and the like could not call him by his first name, so he was given a new name." When a woman turns 15, she has her haircut, which means she is ready to get married, and she also needs to pick her hair.
The way of naming
Based on traditional naming
Based on the sound, shape, and meaning of the name, and based on the images, numbers, and principles of Yi Xue, synthesize Tai Chi Yin and Yang The five elements are in harmony with each other, and the predictor's sense is used to find out the good or bad luck and changing trends of specific people and things in the name. Nowadays, many traditional names are also based on the birth date and horoscope to match the prosperity and lack of the five elements, and then use the corresponding characters to make up for it. If the five elements are missing wood, you can use words with "Jia", "Yue", etc. to make up for it.
Five Elements
Seniority Ranking
China has always been a country that values ??etiquette, and etiquette culture is also reflected in people’s names, giving them profound cultural significance. The ancients placed more emphasis on meaning and connotation in naming, as well as on the order of generations and distinctions between elders and younger ones, which has continued to this day for thousands of years. Take the Confucian seniority of Confucian saints as an example. The sixty-fifth generation used different words to express their seniority. In 1919, the seventy-sixth generation of Yanshenggong Kong Lingyi was registered and renewed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of China. Ten generations.