Most people in ancient times had other words besides their real names. This custom was very common in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. "Book of Rites, Qu Li Shang" states: "When a man is twenty, his crown is given by a Chinese character... A woman is promised to marry, and her hairpin is called a Chinese character." When an aristocratic man turns twenty (adult), he performs the ceremony of crowning and takes the Chinese character, and when a woman marries, When you reach adulthood, you can wear hairpins (hairpins), and you also need to choose a character. Therefore, later, a woman's marriage was also called a "zi", such as: wait for a character, a character for a person, and so on. It seems that the rules of choosing characters were initially limited to the upper class circles, but later gradually broke down, and common people also adopted more characters, and it became a habit.
So, what is the relationship between a character and a name? "Yan's Family Instructions·Fengcao" says: "In ancient times, names were in the correct form, and characters were indicative of virtue." In a broad sense, a character might as well be a name. The interpretation of meaning can also be the expression of the connotation of a name. For example, Zhuge Liang's character is Kongming, Guan Yu's character is Yunchang, Bao Zhao's character is Mingyuan, Tao Qian's character is Yuanming, Bai Juyi's character is Letian, etc., all of which have mutual meanings and complement each other. Su Shi, whose courtesy name is Zizhan. If we know that the ancient meaning of the word "Shi" refers to the crossbar in front of the car for people to lean on, and "Zi" refers to the title of Master, then it is logical to call it "Zhan" when leaning on the railing and looking at it. Words. His other cousin "He Zhong" is rarely used. "Zhong" means two, and Su Shi ranks second. Adding the word "和" means auspiciousness. If you understand the original meaning of these words and look at the cousin, the meaning will be clear. . The Jin Dynasty writer Yuan Haowen was given the courtesy name Yuzhi, as he was "lucky to ask questions" and "rich in knowledge", which is really wonderful. The Qing Dynasty dramatist Li Yu's courtesy name was "笠老", which can be said to be elegance in the vulgar calligraphy. Some people simply split their names into characters to make it easier to remember. For example, the poet Shu Wei in the Qing Dynasty had the character Liren, especially the character Dong. Some people also like to use many characters, over and over again, without getting tired of it. The champion of many characters among literati is probably Mao Qiling (one name is "甡") from Xiaoshan, Hangzhou in the early Qing Dynasty. He has two characters and one character. However, Qiyu, Yu, Chuqing, Wanqing, Laoqing, Qiuqing, Chunchi, Chunzhuang, Sengmi, Sengkai, etc. are really arbitrary and inexplicable.
As for literati, it is also an indispensable and elegant thing for scholars to choose nicknames in addition to their names and characters. This nickname is often more mysterious than the name and may even be traceless, but most of them still have rules. Followable. Many people like to use the names and scenery of the places where they have lived or stayed as their nicknames. For example, Tao Yuanming's "The Biography of Mr. Wuliu" says: "There are five willow trees next to the house, so they think they are nicknamed Yan." Li Bai moved to Mianzhou's Mianzhou Mingming County with his father when he was five years old ( Qinglian Township in today's Jiangyou County, Sichuan, later named himself "Qinglian Jushi"; after Su Shi was demoted to Huangzhou (now Huanggang County, Hubei Province), he "built a house on the east slope of the mountain with Tianfuye Lao Xiang, and named himself "Qinglian Jushi". "Dongpo layman." Su Shi took the title "Dongpo" because he admired Bai Juyi, because Bai Juyi once entertained himself by planting flowers in Dongpo's house in Zhongzhou (now Zhongxian County, Sichuan), and mentioned "Dongpo" in several poems. , Su admired it and followed it, so he took it as a command. Su Shi's nickname is the most popular in the literary world and among the people. He has more than thirty other nicknames, some of which are based on rank and place of origin, such as: Da Su (to distinguish him from his younger brother Su Che), Mr. Emei, Meishan Gong. ; There are those who live by official and academic names, such as: Su Shijun, Su Xianliang, and Xihu Chang; there are also those who call themselves or are called by others because of their personality and poetic style, and those who aim to flatter their ambitions, such as: Po Immortal, Banished Immortal, and Kuang Fu Make, to name a few. From his many names, we can also see that the ancients took a wide range of names and had no restrictions, and multiple names were commonplace. Many literati also got titles based on anecdotes or good sentences. For example, Wen Tingyun in the late Tang Dynasty took part in the imperial examination when he was young. , which is very close to a nickname or a joke. Zhang Xian, a poet in the Song Dynasty, was known as "Zhang Sanying" because he had three good lines about "shadow"; in the late Yuan Dynasty, Yuan Kai became famous for his poems about Bai Yan, and was called "Yuan Baiyan"; in the early Qing Dynasty, Wang Shizhen wrote "Ci Yu Shu" There is a saying that "a man is like a tung flower, and a concubine is like a phoenix with a tung flower". She was praised for her kindness for a while, so she was named "Wang Tonghua". These are all examples of famous poets. It is also a common practice for literati to name their residences and study rooms. The Qing Dynasty poet Yuan Mei settled in Suiyuan in Xiaocangshan, Jiangning (now Nanjing City), so he was named "Suiyuan Old Man"; the book collection of Qian Zeng, a bibliophile in the Qing Dynasty The name of the building is "Shiye Garden", and his nickname is "Shishiweng".