The surname is the title that marks the family system; the surname is the title that marks the clan system of the ancient nobility and is a branch of the surname.
It can be seen that in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the surname and the surname were two different things, and later they were merged into one. For example, after King Wu of Zhou Jifa destroyed the Shang Dynasty and established the Zhou Dynasty, his brother Zhenduo's fiefdom was Cao State. Zhenduo's descendants took "Cao" as their surname. In other words, the Cao family originated from the surname Ji, that is, the Ji surname is the Cao family. After the Zhou Dynasty, there was no distinction between surnames, and Cao became the surname.
The names of ancient people had different number of characters in different periods, usually one or two characters. Therefore, the names of ancient people are similar to those of today, usually two or three characters; those with compound surnames (two-character surnames) have three or four characters.
The ancients had surnames, given names, and characters. Taking a character (usually two characters) related to the meaning of the name to express virtue is called a "table character", or abbreviated character. For example, Confucius was named Qiu and given the courtesy name Zhongni; Chairman Mao was named Zedong and given the courtesy name Runzhi; Chiang Kai-shek was named Zhiqing and later changed his name to Zhongzheng and was given the courtesy name Jieshi.
In addition to names and characters, many ancient people also had nicknames, or even more than one nickname. The number is taken later and usually consists of four characters.
For example, Li Bai, also known as Taibai, also known as Qinglian Jushi; Ouyang Xiu, known as Yongshu, known as Zuiweng and Liuyi Jushi; Zhao Mengfu, known as Ziang, also known as Taoist Songxue and Taoist Shuijinggong.