Unlike in the past, today’s parents have gone to college and are educated, so they pay more attention to their children’s names. Unlike our parents of the previous generation, who generally named their children something like Zhang Wei, Jianguo, etc., which gave a sense of age.
Today’s parents only name their children if it sounds nice, because many parents have a very high level of education, so it is relatively easy to give a name that sounds nice. However, nowadays, parents not only pay attention to good-sounding names, but more importantly, they value the five elements and eight characters. Parents do not understand these things, so now parents basically find various masters to choose names, which has given birth to the naming industry.
Look at the sales volume of the named store on a certain website. The sales volume is 5,000. Calculated as 200, that is 1 million. 1 million a month. There is no cost. This business is indeed possible.
However, no matter how powerful and capable the masters are, their level of knowledge is limited. Starting from 10 or 100, the master can come up with a good name based on the child's characteristics and his own cultural knowledge. If there are 1,000 or even tens of thousands, no matter how high the level of the master is, it is impossible to come up with a unique name every time. This is also an important reason why there are so many children with the same name nowadays.
According to official statistics, the most popular characters in newborn names are "Xuan, Han, and Zi". The top three names for male babies are Zixuan, Haoran, and Jiaxuan; the top three names for female babies are Zi Han, Zi Xuan, Zixuan. It is said that in serious cases, there may be several people named "Zihan" and "Zixuan" in a class.
I don’t know how my parents would feel when they saw the name that they spent a lot of money to buy, but it turned out to be a cheap product.
It is true that parents value names, but the five elements and eight characters are not particularly important. I have reservations, at least I personally don’t believe this. In my opinion, a child's name is indeed particularly important, not because of the five elements and eight characters, but because of the metaphors contained in the name.
A name is not just a few words, it is just a title. It is based on our existing knowledge and culture. Any words will have specific interpretations and imply specific meanings. The meaning behind this is metaphorical.
Let me give you an example.
Everyone should know the poem "Withered vines and old trees, dim crows". When we were children, we may not understand it, but when we read this poem as adults, we can quickly understand the artistic conception and express a sense of desolation and sadness. Why is it that we can feel this feeling even though there is not a single word in this sentence to describe this feeling? Just because of the metaphor. "Withered vines", "old trees", and "faint crows" all imply a feeling of getting old and dying. When we see "withered", "old" and "faint", we will naturally have this feeling. Association, then you will understand the meaning behind this poem. If we cannot see the metaphor behind this poem, the "withered vines", "old trees" and "dark crows" in our eyes are isolated things, and of course we will not be able to understand this poem.
Let’s look at these names again: Gou Sheng, Jianguo, Wan’er, and Shihan.
We hardly need to look at the person. Just looking at the name creates a special image in our mind. Gou Sheng, who is dirty and with tattered clothes; Jianguo, who is serious and rigid, and who devotes himself to the country; Wan'er, a weak and graceful girl; Shihan, who is fairy-like and has outstanding temperament. girl.
The reason why we have this kind of recognition after seeing the names is because of the metaphors behind these names.
The name is like a label, attached to the child. When people around them use such metaphors to view children, the children will naturally be affected by it. People may bully someone called Gou Sheng without restraint; people may give enough trust to someone named Jianguo. From the first moment people hear a name, metaphors come into play, influencing people's attitudes.
So what kind of name is a good name? This requires us to first understand metaphors.
In fact, people have metaphorical understanding of not only names, but also everything. For example, the "withered vines, old trees and dim crows" mentioned above, and when people see plum blossoms, orchids, bamboos and chrysanthemums, they think of "the four gentlemen in flowers", and when people see the south, they think of heat... All these expanded associations belong to metaphorical content.
Why do people create metaphors? This is determined by our cognitive characteristics. Our cognitive characteristics determine that the emergence of metaphor is inevitable.
Now think about how we understand things and accept new knowledge. If we want to understand new knowledge, we must use old knowledge to explain new knowledge and combine new knowledge with old knowledge. Only in this way can we continue to expand the scope of our knowledge and learn new things. It is impossible for us to understand and accept unknown knowledge in a vacuum, and it is impossible for anyone.
It's like walking, you can only move forward step by step. If you jump hard, you can learn to move farther. But you can't run from Beijing to Shanghai all at once because there is no intermediate process.
Let me give you another example.
If you come up and explain quantum mechanics to a 10-year-old child, will he understand it? I definitely don’t understand. Because his existing knowledge structure has nothing to do with quantum mechanics, he cannot make a connection. On the contrary, if you teach quantum mechanics to a university physics graduate, he may understand it because his knowledge structure can help him analyze new quantum mechanics content.
Our understanding and explanation of new things and new knowledge using old knowledge constitutes the metaphor behind this knowledge.
It should be noted that a word can have many metaphors, but in order of priority, we are more affected by the main metaphor.
For example, the word "military" has different meanings, such as soldiers, military uniforms, military vehicles, troops, war, etc. When we see this word, we think more of "soldiers" and "military". A metaphor for military integrity and protecting the country.
Now that we understand what a metaphor is, what kind of name makes a good name?
According to metaphor, a good name should contain the following characteristics:
1. Paint a good metaphorical image
Although people do not know the concept of metaphor , in fact, people have always chosen names in a metaphorical way. When we parents name our children, we usually use positive words and rarely use negative words.
Take a look at the picture below. Among the names with the most duplicate names in China, the metaphors of the names are all positive and none of them are negative.
Depicting a good, positive image is the most basic requirement for a good name metaphor, which will subtly affect children and people around them.
2. Express in a tortuous way, not too straightforwardly
We want to depict a positive metaphorical image, but this image cannot be expressed too straightforwardly. This is actually a metaphor. Only uneducated people can explain problems simply and straightforwardly. People with quality and level often seem incomprehensible to you, but if you think about it carefully, you will be amazed. Therefore, we need to express a positive metaphorical image without being too direct.
For example, taking the word "Wei", it is said that there is someone named "Zhang Wei" around everyone. Just looking at the word "wei" makes people think of greatness, majesty, majesty, and power, with positive metaphors. However, the wrong use of this word is that it is too straightforward, seems too popular, and is too vulgar, so that it creates another metaphor: it is usually parents who are uneducated and have no skills to choose such a name. Therefore, when people see this name, the first metaphor they think of is not powerful and great, but vulgar and substandard.
If we change the word and express the same meaning, for example, "Zhang Shan", does it not only contain the meaning of greatness and majesty, but also appear to be more profound? Change it again and call it "Zhang Yuanshan"? Does it make the image more vivid when you think of it as a metaphor?
The same metaphorical image can be expressed in many different ways. How to choose a name that is both easy to understand and not popular with the general public, so that it can appear to be the standard of the name maker.
For names, metaphor is very important. Parents should never give up random names on a whim. For example, the name below will cause the child to be laughed at and ostracized by his classmates.
In fact, metaphors are not only included in names. There are deep metaphors behind our various online avatars and online manifestos. This is not what this article will discuss. If you are interested, netizens can do their own research.